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It will not affect it in any way. They have released their plans for Starlink and there will be a "blackout" zone over China, so China doesn't shoot down their

It will not affect it in any way. They have released their plans for Starlink and there will be a "blackout" zone over China, so China doesn't shoot down their satellites. In 2007, China shot down FY-1C as a test of a kinetic kill vehicle (leaving tons of high speed space debris). Unless they receive approval from China to broadcast, they won't over China. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-constellation-china-threat-2016-11?r=UK&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-con...

52-6F-62 8y ago
> shot down FY-1C as a test of a kinetic kill vehicle (leaving tons of high speed space debris) Do you have more info on this? Or anyone? That's so crass. It's plain indefensible. I really want to know more. edit: Thanks for the links.
- psisbwvaiia 8y ago
  Why is it indefensible to defend your nation’s sovereignty. Many nations have google maps blur out their military bases for example. I’m sure lots of North Americans wouldn’t want Chinese satellites overhead for concern of privacy. I mean, generating tons of space junk is not cool. But what else are you going to do if others are lurking on your airspace? It is going to be shift is policy though. We are going to need to update space law.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    I mean specifically generating high-speed shrapnel in orbit. That's going to have implications for a very long time. If there is a willingness to do it once, it tests the barrier of what's acceptable. It's bad for everyone—present, and future.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    > I’m sure lots of North Americans wouldn’t want Chinese satellites overhead for concern of privacy. Umm, there are of course Chinese satellites overhead and they have excellent imagery of all of our military bases. As we do for theirs (and every other country!). Orbits aren't very friendly to avoiding airspace.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    shooting down shit and generating orbital debris in polar orbits is incredibly dangerous to the commons that is low earth orbit, generally. accidental example: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=iridium+satellite+collision&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=iri... no nation-state wants to start the game of shooting down another's satellite, either military or commercial, because everything up there is so vulnerable. it would open china to retaliatory strikes taking down their own polar orbit LEO, inclined LEO (35-45 degree) molnia, MEO and GEO satellites. satellites are fragile things and can be killed with one 200g chunk of tungsten at a closing velocity of 18,000 km/h.
  - tarlinian 8y ago
    National sovereignty over airspace does not extend into orbit. Otherwise nearly every earth science satellite in polar orbit would be in violation of international law.
  - sambull 8y ago
    Why is a Chinese sattelite less private than a sheriffs helicopter, private imaging plane running grids or an American satellite? Or my neighbors drone? Your defining 'space' as airspace is odd also
  - mirimir 8y ago
    How far does "airspace" extend? I can see that for low orbit, but geostationary?
    - aphextron 8y ago
      The SpaceX satellites won’t be in GTO, they will be in LEO, around 600 miles altitude. Well within kill range for ballistic missiles.
- djrogers 8y ago
  Googling the phrase "China shot down FY-1C" came up with a bunch of stuff, the first of which was the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
- solarengineer 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
- rhcom2 8y ago
  Also America's tests: (2008) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost (1985) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solwind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solwind
seatotree 8y ago
If China shoots down a SpaceX satellite, that is an act of war against the United States. China wouldn’t risk it. This is a great opportunity to break the great firewall and finally give the Chinese people access to unfiltered information.
- zpr 8y ago
  Which might be seen as a provocation by the Chinese Government of the US to destabilize it's citizens.
  - seatotree 8y ago
    Not illegal under international law. We did this all the time to the Soviets. This is what Voice of America does today.
- btian 8y ago
  China absolutely will. And if SpaceX were to beam internet over North Korea, then NK will shoot it down too.
  - windexh8er 8y ago
    Your comment implies they could successfully destroy said satellite. It might be a better distraction to tell NK there's one overhead, "leak" it's orbit, position, etc. and watch the fireworks month over month.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    I know NK has made some major advancements in their missile capabilities but shooting down a satellite is pretty advanced stuff... any indications that they're capable of doing what you claim they would do?
- mrep 8y ago
  > If China shoots down a SpaceX satellite, that is an act of war against the United States. These are not government satellites and china owns the airwaves over their nation. I highly doubt the US government would retaliate whatsoever against China if they shot down a satellite that illegally interacted with their airspace. > China wouldn’t risk it. This is a great opportunity to break the great firewall and finally give the Chinese people access to unfiltered information. Take this with a grain of salt since this is mostly based on what I have heard hearsay, but they can jam the signals and/or monitor who transmits back and go after the citizens using said signal (and china is not a country where you want to poke the government). I doubt this will have any effect on the great firewall.
greedo 8y ago
China won't shoot down commercial satellites, they'll just either jam the signal, or block ownership of the ground terminals. Shooting down satellites is very expensive, and would cause an incredible hue and cry internationally. It's one thing to shoot down one of your own defunct satellites, quite another thing to shoot down someone else's.
- lev99 8y ago
  > Shooting down satellites is very expensive It's less expensive than launching satellites, and the Chinese goverment has enough money to do it if they want.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > It's less expensive than launching satellites Are you sure? If China knocks out one of ours, we’ll knock out at least one of theirs. We’ll also likely implement a suite of sanctions. Shooting down a satellite is an act of war.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      >If China knocks out one of ours, we’ll knock out at least one of theirs. No, we won’t. We’ll impose several decades of meaningless tariffs and embargoes with tons of loopholes so it looks like we’re doing something until everyone forgets what everyone was mad about in the first place.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Why am I ever surprised at the constant expansion of justifications for war? Wars kill lots of people. You knew that, right?
  - positr0n 8y ago
    > It's less expensive than launching satellites I doubt it, since a single Falcon Heavy launch would carry dozens of Starlink satellites but the existing anti-satellite technology can only hit one at a time. Keep in mind they have said the final constellation will be 12,000 satellites! edit: and BFR could theoretically carry 300 when it is operational. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/25525/how-many-spacex-starlink-internet-service-satellites-could-be-deployed-in-a-sing https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/25525/how-many-spa...
vatueil 8y ago
The linked source says nothing about a "blackout zone" over China. More likely SpaceX won't sell ground receivers in mainland China and/or the PRC will simply ban Starlink receivers.

52-6F-62 8y ago

> shot down FY-1C as a test of a kinetic kill vehicle (leaving tons of high speed space debris) Do you have more info on this? Or anyone? That's so crass. It's plain indefensible. I really want to know more. edit: Thanks for the links.

psisbwvaiia 8y ago
Why is it indefensible to defend your nation’s sovereignty. Many nations have google maps blur out their military bases for example. I’m sure lots of North Americans wouldn’t want Chinese satellites overhead for concern of privacy. I mean, generating tons of space junk is not cool. But what else are you going to do if others are lurking on your airspace? It is going to be shift is policy though. We are going to need to update space law.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I mean specifically generating high-speed shrapnel in orbit. That's going to have implications for a very long time. If there is a willingness to do it once, it tests the barrier of what's acceptable. It's bad for everyone—present, and future.
- jonknee 8y ago
  > I’m sure lots of North Americans wouldn’t want Chinese satellites overhead for concern of privacy. Umm, there are of course Chinese satellites overhead and they have excellent imagery of all of our military bases. As we do for theirs (and every other country!). Orbits aren't very friendly to avoiding airspace.
- walrus01 8y ago
  shooting down shit and generating orbital debris in polar orbits is incredibly dangerous to the commons that is low earth orbit, generally. accidental example: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=iridium+satellite+collision&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=iri... no nation-state wants to start the game of shooting down another's satellite, either military or commercial, because everything up there is so vulnerable. it would open china to retaliatory strikes taking down their own polar orbit LEO, inclined LEO (35-45 degree) molnia, MEO and GEO satellites. satellites are fragile things and can be killed with one 200g chunk of tungsten at a closing velocity of 18,000 km/h.
- tarlinian 8y ago
  National sovereignty over airspace does not extend into orbit. Otherwise nearly every earth science satellite in polar orbit would be in violation of international law.
- sambull 8y ago
  Why is a Chinese sattelite less private than a sheriffs helicopter, private imaging plane running grids or an American satellite? Or my neighbors drone? Your defining 'space' as airspace is odd also
- mirimir 8y ago
  How far does "airspace" extend? I can see that for low orbit, but geostationary?
  - aphextron 8y ago
    The SpaceX satellites won’t be in GTO, they will be in LEO, around 600 miles altitude. Well within kill range for ballistic missiles.
djrogers 8y ago
Googling the phrase "China shot down FY-1C" came up with a bunch of stuff, the first of which was the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
solarengineer 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
rhcom2 8y ago
Also America's tests: (2008) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost (1985) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solwind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solwind

seatotree 8y ago

If China shoots down a SpaceX satellite, that is an act of war against the United States. China wouldn’t risk it. This is a great opportunity to break the great firewall and finally give the Chinese people access to unfiltered information.

zpr 8y ago
Which might be seen as a provocation by the Chinese Government of the US to destabilize it's citizens.
- seatotree 8y ago
  Not illegal under international law. We did this all the time to the Soviets. This is what Voice of America does today.
btian 8y ago
China absolutely will. And if SpaceX were to beam internet over North Korea, then NK will shoot it down too.
- windexh8er 8y ago
  Your comment implies they could successfully destroy said satellite. It might be a better distraction to tell NK there's one overhead, "leak" it's orbit, position, etc. and watch the fireworks month over month.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I know NK has made some major advancements in their missile capabilities but shooting down a satellite is pretty advanced stuff... any indications that they're capable of doing what you claim they would do?
mrep 8y ago
> If China shoots down a SpaceX satellite, that is an act of war against the United States. These are not government satellites and china owns the airwaves over their nation. I highly doubt the US government would retaliate whatsoever against China if they shot down a satellite that illegally interacted with their airspace. > China wouldn’t risk it. This is a great opportunity to break the great firewall and finally give the Chinese people access to unfiltered information. Take this with a grain of salt since this is mostly based on what I have heard hearsay, but they can jam the signals and/or monitor who transmits back and go after the citizens using said signal (and china is not a country where you want to poke the government). I doubt this will have any effect on the great firewall.

greedo 8y ago

China won't shoot down commercial satellites, they'll just either jam the signal, or block ownership of the ground terminals. Shooting down satellites is very expensive, and would cause an incredible hue and cry internationally. It's one thing to shoot down one of your own defunct satellites, quite another thing to shoot down someone else's.

lev99 8y ago
> Shooting down satellites is very expensive It's less expensive than launching satellites, and the Chinese goverment has enough money to do it if they want.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > It's less expensive than launching satellites Are you sure? If China knocks out one of ours, we’ll knock out at least one of theirs. We’ll also likely implement a suite of sanctions. Shooting down a satellite is an act of war.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    >If China knocks out one of ours, we’ll knock out at least one of theirs. No, we won’t. We’ll impose several decades of meaningless tariffs and embargoes with tons of loopholes so it looks like we’re doing something until everyone forgets what everyone was mad about in the first place.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Why am I ever surprised at the constant expansion of justifications for war? Wars kill lots of people. You knew that, right?
- positr0n 8y ago
  > It's less expensive than launching satellites I doubt it, since a single Falcon Heavy launch would carry dozens of Starlink satellites but the existing anti-satellite technology can only hit one at a time. Keep in mind they have said the final constellation will be 12,000 satellites! edit: and BFR could theoretically carry 300 when it is operational. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/25525/how-many-spacex-starlink-internet-service-satellites-could-be-deployed-in-a-sing https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/25525/how-many-spa...

vatueil 8y ago

The linked source says nothing about a "blackout zone" over China. More likely SpaceX won't sell ground receivers in mainland China and/or the PRC will simply ban Starlink receivers.