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Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? (I'm pretty sure GPS is used for guidance of drones and missiles pret

Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? (I'm pretty sure GPS is used for guidance of drones and missiles pretty heavily there.) Or for a satellite top be a legit target the communication needs to be two-way? In such case I suspect Türksat satellite should be considered within scope, since Bayraktar TB2S (which reportedly has been used by Ukraine in this war) uses it for SATCOM. What about other military uses of Starlink, outside of guidance systems? Those are plentiful, and it's hard to see why there would be a drastic difference between guiding a drone and providing communication backbone for military operation coordination in the eyes of the Russians. After all, they are bombing civilian infrastructure just fine, and didn't even care to formally declare this "special military operation" a war... My point being, I don't think "legitimate target" has to do anything with Russia not shooting down any satellites; it's either lack of capacity or fear of retaliation, both being rather orthogonal to the targets "legitimacy" IMO.

dotnet00 4y ago
Yeah I agree that SpaceX's concern is unlikely over potential attacks on their satellites. Not only is SpaceX able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down, attacking a Starlink satellite would be an act of war against the US regardless. I think SpaceX's concern is more related to domestic liability. The US's policy has been that they will not provide offensive aid for attacking into Russia. They've been very careful about the range of the systems they send for that reason. Unrestricted Starlink is not subject to those range limits. So, if the attacks which went deep into Russian territory involved Starlink mounted to drones, it would essentially be in violation of the US's own stated policy about military aid to Ukraine. Thus far this hasn't caused any trouble, but if something were to happen (eg an escalation), SpaceX might get thrown under the bus by the US government since they aren't contracted by the DoD to provide such service.
- wazer5 4y ago
  Low earth orbit is easy to hit with anti-satellite missiles, can even use ASM-135 which is a interceptor fired from a fighter jet. GPS altitudes and up are a different story.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    There's over 3,500 Starlink satellites. That likely dramatically exceeds the number of anti-satellite missiles in the entire world, let alone Russia's.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      One hit will create thousands of fragments. How many consecutive hits would be necessary to create severe enough Kessler event to destroy most of the Stralink satellites? Dozens?
      - XorNot 4y ago
        As everyone knows, the best possible way to deal with an aggressor is just straight appeasement. The risks are so large that appeasement is the only answer. If only we had historically tried appeasing belligerent foreign powers, think what wars would have been avoided... /sarcasm
        wazer5 4y ago
        Replace "an agressor" with "the USA" and that pretty much sums up history.
        XorNot 4y ago
        LOL.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
        wazer5 4y ago
        Most of us alive are thinking of the last 75 years.
        XorNot 4y ago
        Ironically this only further proves the point: US expansionist foreign policy would not have been checked by giving the US what it wanted. There was no version of Iraq complying with the UN which was going to prevent the neo-conservatives from getting their regime change invasion in 2003. The only preventative measures which would've worked would be diplomatic and economic counter-pressure from the UN and more specifically Europe and other NATO allies, or substantial military build up capable of seriously endangering US conventional forces. Ukraine would be in a much different military position today if it were a pariah state, as opposed to a nation declaring a strong intent to join both the EU and NATO. Turns out diplomacy, allies and soft-power are actually kind of useful things when you're not the dominant military hegemon.
- XorNot 4y ago
  SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until, mysteriously, "SpaceX" suddenly was coincidental to Elon Musk having his Twitter breakdown when he decided he personally was going to negotiate peace for Ukraine[1] and was promptly rebuffed by the Ukrainian foreign minister. Then, totally coincidentally[2] suddenly "SpaceX" had very big corporate concerns about how Starlink was used and also wanted more money from the DoD at a higher commercial rate[3] and... You know, just a whole pile of totally normal coincidences... [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000 [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579094238998171648 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579094238998171648 [3] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex...
  - wazer5 4y ago
    Biden administration decided to halt plans to weaponize space started under Trump. This mothballing decision was made in early 2022 and led to said reactions by Elon.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    >SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until... If they weren't worried about these issues, why are they very explicitly spelled out in the Starlink terms of service? The issue came up because Ukraine violated the terms of service by using them as command/control of an explosive drone boat system. You're just making things up.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  >SpaceX is able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down This doesnt seem correct to me. Building, launching, and positioning replacement satellites to fill gaps in service seems like it would take much more effort and cost than a takedown. Can you further expand on why you think your claim is accurate?
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    Russia doesn't have 3500 ASAT missiles and can't build (and launch) them at a rate of ~50 per week (it's estimated that they produce ~50 cruise missiles per month). Admittedly they don't have to shoot down 3500 sats, probably only the sats in the group servicing Ukraine, but that's still a couple hundred sats and thus, likely more than the Russian ASAT stockpile.
    - yencabulator 4y ago
      The only two ways I can see to make ASAT logistics work against large constellations like Starlink is if they figure out laser-based ASAT or an in-orbit attack mechanism that shoots multiple cheap missiles/bullets (avoiding expensive separate launch per target). Neither sounds impossible, though.
      - dotnet00 4y ago
        Yeah it's difficult to envision a truly cost effective ASAT measure, "shooting" bullets is deceptive in that it'd still require carrying the large amount of fuel needed to effectively change orbit (especially for changing inclination) and would be a bit too messy in terms of spread of the resulting debris. Another interesting and clean approach might be jamming the satellites from orbit. You can't go after all the satellites, but since you can predict which ones will be over when you're doing something important, you can launch vehicles to approach specifically those and jam them at close range.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
According to the anti satellite wiki page, hitting a gps satellite would be difficult and pointless unless you're taking out everything in geo orbit.
- jdougan 4y ago
  GPS says aren't in geosync, they use 12 hour orbits.
  - shagie 4y ago
    Starlink is at 550 km. A geosynchronous orbit is 37,000 km. GPS saltines are at 20,000 km. While not geosynchronous, they're certainly not in the LEO easy to hit target. This is mentioned in the Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon > US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites orbit at about 800 km (500 mi) high and move at 7.5 km/s (4.7 mi/s), so a Chinese Intermediate-range ballistic missile would need to compensate for 1350 km (840 mi) of movement in the three minutes it takes to boost to that altitude. Even if an ISR satellite is knocked out, the US possesses an extensive array of manned and unmanned ISR aircraft that could perform missions at standoff ranges from Chinese land-based air defences, making them somewhat higher priority targets that would consume fewer resources to better engage. > The Global Positioning System and communications satellites orbit at higher altitudes of 20000 km (12000 mi) and 36000 km (22000 mi) respectively, putting them out of range of solid-fuelled Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Liquid-fuelled space launch vehicles could reach those altitudes, but they are more time-consuming to launch and could be attacked on the ground before being able to launch in rapid succession. The constellation of 30 GPS satellites provides redundancy where at least four satellites can be received in six orbital planes at any one time, so an attacker would need to disable at least six satellites to disrupt the network.
macspoofing 4y ago
>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? Of course it does. In the real world, anything is permissible (because there is no global federal government) as long as you have the strength to enforce. In the case of GPS satellite constellation, that is infrastructure owned and operated by the US military, so any attack on those satellites brings Russia directly into conflict with the US and NATO. >My point being, I don't think "legitimate target" has to do anything with Russia not shooting down any satellites; it's either lack of capacity or fear of retaliation, both being rather orthogonal to the targets "legitimacy" IMO. Right ... To rephrase: is the US military willing to indemnify Starlink to the same degree if it is attacked by Russia?
- andy_ppp 4y ago
  You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure. Maybe a huge explosion at some vital oil infrastructure or actually destroying the bridge to Crimea.
  - macspoofing 4y ago
    >You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure. It doesn't necessarily imply that that IFF Starlink is providing military assistance to Ukraine, and in response, Russia targets Starlink satellites, that the US will necessarily escalate further. And there is precedence for this. For example, after US assassinated Soleimani, and Iran retaliated against an American base in Iraq (leading to ~100 casualties - though no deaths, and extensive damage to the base itself), America did not further escalate.
ptsneves 4y ago
Agree with you. I am damn sure that GPS satellites are a military target! They are even owned by a military organisation. It just so happens that organisation is the most powerful military power in the world. Given that, the next best thing is to jam GPS signals on the ground and I would be very surprised the Russians are not doing it at some scales. I highly doubt Americans gave the Ukrainians the keys for the special modulation that bypasses usual jamming abilities.
- shagie 4y ago
  > I would be very surprised the Russians are not doing it at some scales. They certainly are - https://www.gpsworld.com/ukraine-attacks-changed-russian-gps-jamming/ https://www.gpsworld.com/ukraine-attacks-changed-russian-gps... The live map of where GPS is getting some interference - https://gpsjam.org https://gpsjam.org
Dalewyn 4y ago
>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? GPS is a US military asset and consequently a military target for hostile actors. The only thing keeping Russia from just blowing them out of the sky is because to do so would be an unconditional declaration and act of war against the USA.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  And because they are using it in their planes and within their units. Sure you can argue with Glonass, but if it is working so well, why SU-34s are using Garmin with GPS instead?
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    Irrelevant - Garmin can receive GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dotnet00 4y ago

Yeah I agree that SpaceX's concern is unlikely over potential attacks on their satellites. Not only is SpaceX able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down, attacking a Starlink satellite would be an act of war against the US regardless. I think SpaceX's concern is more related to domestic liability. The US's policy has been that they will not provide offensive aid for attacking into Russia. They've been very careful about the range of the systems they send for that reason. Unrestricted Starlink is not subject to those range limits. So, if the attacks which went deep into Russian territory involved Starlink mounted to drones, it would essentially be in violation of the US's own stated policy about military aid to Ukraine. Thus far this hasn't caused any trouble, but if something were to happen (eg an escalation), SpaceX might get thrown under the bus by the US government since they aren't contracted by the DoD to provide such service.

wazer5 4y ago
Low earth orbit is easy to hit with anti-satellite missiles, can even use ASM-135 which is a interceptor fired from a fighter jet. GPS altitudes and up are a different story.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  There's over 3,500 Starlink satellites. That likely dramatically exceeds the number of anti-satellite missiles in the entire world, let alone Russia's.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    One hit will create thousands of fragments. How many consecutive hits would be necessary to create severe enough Kessler event to destroy most of the Stralink satellites? Dozens?
    - XorNot 4y ago
      As everyone knows, the best possible way to deal with an aggressor is just straight appeasement. The risks are so large that appeasement is the only answer. If only we had historically tried appeasing belligerent foreign powers, think what wars would have been avoided... /sarcasm
      - wazer5 4y ago
        Replace "an agressor" with "the USA" and that pretty much sums up history.
        XorNot 4y ago
        LOL.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
        wazer5 4y ago
        Most of us alive are thinking of the last 75 years.
        XorNot 4y ago
        Ironically this only further proves the point: US expansionist foreign policy would not have been checked by giving the US what it wanted. There was no version of Iraq complying with the UN which was going to prevent the neo-conservatives from getting their regime change invasion in 2003. The only preventative measures which would've worked would be diplomatic and economic counter-pressure from the UN and more specifically Europe and other NATO allies, or substantial military build up capable of seriously endangering US conventional forces. Ukraine would be in a much different military position today if it were a pariah state, as opposed to a nation declaring a strong intent to join both the EU and NATO. Turns out diplomacy, allies and soft-power are actually kind of useful things when you're not the dominant military hegemon.
XorNot 4y ago
SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until, mysteriously, "SpaceX" suddenly was coincidental to Elon Musk having his Twitter breakdown when he decided he personally was going to negotiate peace for Ukraine[1] and was promptly rebuffed by the Ukrainian foreign minister. Then, totally coincidentally[2] suddenly "SpaceX" had very big corporate concerns about how Starlink was used and also wanted more money from the DoD at a higher commercial rate[3] and... You know, just a whole pile of totally normal coincidences... [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000 [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579094238998171648 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579094238998171648 [3] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex...
- wazer5 4y ago
  Biden administration decided to halt plans to weaponize space started under Trump. This mothballing decision was made in early 2022 and led to said reactions by Elon.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  >SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until... If they weren't worried about these issues, why are they very explicitly spelled out in the Starlink terms of service? The issue came up because Ukraine violated the terms of service by using them as command/control of an explosive drone boat system. You're just making things up.
ashwagary 4y ago
>SpaceX is able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down This doesnt seem correct to me. Building, launching, and positioning replacement satellites to fill gaps in service seems like it would take much more effort and cost than a takedown. Can you further expand on why you think your claim is accurate?
- dotnet00 4y ago
  Russia doesn't have 3500 ASAT missiles and can't build (and launch) them at a rate of ~50 per week (it's estimated that they produce ~50 cruise missiles per month). Admittedly they don't have to shoot down 3500 sats, probably only the sats in the group servicing Ukraine, but that's still a couple hundred sats and thus, likely more than the Russian ASAT stockpile.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    The only two ways I can see to make ASAT logistics work against large constellations like Starlink is if they figure out laser-based ASAT or an in-orbit attack mechanism that shoots multiple cheap missiles/bullets (avoiding expensive separate launch per target). Neither sounds impossible, though.
    - dotnet00 4y ago
      Yeah it's difficult to envision a truly cost effective ASAT measure, "shooting" bullets is deceptive in that it'd still require carrying the large amount of fuel needed to effectively change orbit (especially for changing inclination) and would be a bit too messy in terms of spread of the resulting debris. Another interesting and clean approach might be jamming the satellites from orbit. You can't go after all the satellites, but since you can predict which ones will be over when you're doing something important, you can launch vehicles to approach specifically those and jam them at close range.

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

According to the anti satellite wiki page, hitting a gps satellite would be difficult and pointless unless you're taking out everything in geo orbit.

jdougan 4y ago
GPS says aren't in geosync, they use 12 hour orbits.
- shagie 4y ago
  Starlink is at 550 km. A geosynchronous orbit is 37,000 km. GPS saltines are at 20,000 km. While not geosynchronous, they're certainly not in the LEO easy to hit target. This is mentioned in the Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon > US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites orbit at about 800 km (500 mi) high and move at 7.5 km/s (4.7 mi/s), so a Chinese Intermediate-range ballistic missile would need to compensate for 1350 km (840 mi) of movement in the three minutes it takes to boost to that altitude. Even if an ISR satellite is knocked out, the US possesses an extensive array of manned and unmanned ISR aircraft that could perform missions at standoff ranges from Chinese land-based air defences, making them somewhat higher priority targets that would consume fewer resources to better engage. > The Global Positioning System and communications satellites orbit at higher altitudes of 20000 km (12000 mi) and 36000 km (22000 mi) respectively, putting them out of range of solid-fuelled Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Liquid-fuelled space launch vehicles could reach those altitudes, but they are more time-consuming to launch and could be attacked on the ground before being able to launch in rapid succession. The constellation of 30 GPS satellites provides redundancy where at least four satellites can be received in six orbital planes at any one time, so an attacker would need to disable at least six satellites to disrupt the network.

macspoofing 4y ago

>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? Of course it does. In the real world, anything is permissible (because there is no global federal government) as long as you have the strength to enforce. In the case of GPS satellite constellation, that is infrastructure owned and operated by the US military, so any attack on those satellites brings Russia directly into conflict with the US and NATO. >My point being, I don't think "legitimate target" has to do anything with Russia not shooting down any satellites; it's either lack of capacity or fear of retaliation, both being rather orthogonal to the targets "legitimacy" IMO. Right ... To rephrase: is the US military willing to indemnify Starlink to the same degree if it is attacked by Russia?

andy_ppp 4y ago
You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure. Maybe a huge explosion at some vital oil infrastructure or actually destroying the bridge to Crimea.
- macspoofing 4y ago
  >You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure. It doesn't necessarily imply that that IFF Starlink is providing military assistance to Ukraine, and in response, Russia targets Starlink satellites, that the US will necessarily escalate further. And there is precedence for this. For example, after US assassinated Soleimani, and Iran retaliated against an American base in Iraq (leading to ~100 casualties - though no deaths, and extensive damage to the base itself), America did not further escalate.

ptsneves 4y ago

Agree with you. I am damn sure that GPS satellites are a military target! They are even owned by a military organisation. It just so happens that organisation is the most powerful military power in the world. Given that, the next best thing is to jam GPS signals on the ground and I would be very surprised the Russians are not doing it at some scales. I highly doubt Americans gave the Ukrainians the keys for the special modulation that bypasses usual jamming abilities.

shagie 4y ago
> I would be very surprised the Russians are not doing it at some scales. They certainly are - https://www.gpsworld.com/ukraine-attacks-changed-russian-gps-jamming/ https://www.gpsworld.com/ukraine-attacks-changed-russian-gps... The live map of where GPS is getting some interference - https://gpsjam.org https://gpsjam.org

Dalewyn 4y ago

>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? GPS is a US military asset and consequently a military target for hostile actors. The only thing keeping Russia from just blowing them out of the sky is because to do so would be an unconditional declaration and act of war against the USA.

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
And because they are using it in their planes and within their units. Sure you can argue with Glonass, but if it is working so well, why SU-34s are using Garmin with GPS instead?
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  Irrelevant - Garmin can receive GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]