5 ms·

Shooting Starlink: The "no limits" partnership between Russia and China

9 points by uxhacker 2mo ago

bluelotus1618 2mo ago
[flagged]
uxhacker 2mo ago
The story is a joint joint investigation with Le Monde and Der Spiegel: Der Spiegel: https://www.spiegel.de/ https://www.spiegel.de/ ausland/china-und-russland-recherchen-zeigen-ausmass-der-militaerkooperation-a-46fa7894-0b2c-411b-ba21-cc7c6b053c3f Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/m- https://www.lemonde.fr/m- le-mag/article/2026/07/09/entre-pekin-et-moscou-de-tres-secrets-forums-de-cooperation-militaire_6722048_4500055.html
ben_w 2mo ago
Extremely obvious they would consider this, to the extent that it's one of the independent arguments against valuing Starlink as if it has a shot at being a global monopoly. Ditto space-based data centres.
- uxhacker 2mo ago
  I wonder if the us has a means of protecting the Starlink satellites?
  - ben_w 2mo ago
    From what I've seen, I believe the only possible option is threatening to use the US military against anyone who attacked Starlink. Space is hard place to attack in the first place, but even harder to defend against attacks from those who can reach it.
  - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
    I think it’s unlikely. At LEO constellation altitude, you could use ground to space energy weapons (~3-10MW) to disable these satellites, no on orbit anti satellite capability required. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1544/1/012178/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1544/1/...
    - uxhacker 2mo ago
      So they can be disabled from the ground? Why has russia not thought of that? Is that why Starlink is actually concerned about them been used by Ukraine?
      - ben_w 2mo ago
        It's unlikely Russia has a 3 megawatt laser and the optics to hit a satellite at this time. Anti-drone defence would be much easier with much worse than that. That said, the ongoing improvements to lasers, and price reductions, in a decade I expect the limiting factor for random terrorists performing such an attack would be adaptive optics to get past atmospheric distortion.
        toomuchtodo 2mo ago
        I strongly believe China has this laser and adaptive optics capability today, they’re just not going to show their hand until they’re ready. Agree in a decade any rando will be able to accomplish this.
  - drysine 2mo ago
    >of protecting the Starlink satellites Like shooting down all Russian satellites in retaliation? The US can produce and launch new satellites much faster than Russia.

9 points by uxhacker 2mo ago

[flagged]

The story is a joint joint investigation with Le Monde and Der Spiegel: Der Spiegel: https://www.spiegel.de/ https://www.spiegel.de/ ausland/china-und-russland-recherchen-zeigen-ausmass-der-militaerkooperation-a-46fa7894-0b2c-411b-ba21-cc7c6b053c3f Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/m- https://www.lemonde.fr/m- le-mag/article/2026/07/09/entre-pekin-et-moscou-de-tres-secrets-forums-de-cooperation-militaire_6722048_4500055.html

ben_w 2mo ago

Extremely obvious they would consider this, to the extent that it's one of the independent arguments against valuing Starlink as if it has a shot at being a global monopoly. Ditto space-based data centres.

uxhacker 2mo ago
I wonder if the us has a means of protecting the Starlink satellites?
- ben_w 2mo ago
  From what I've seen, I believe the only possible option is threatening to use the US military against anyone who attacked Starlink. Space is hard place to attack in the first place, but even harder to defend against attacks from those who can reach it.
- toomuchtodo 2mo ago
  I think it’s unlikely. At LEO constellation altitude, you could use ground to space energy weapons (~3-10MW) to disable these satellites, no on orbit anti satellite capability required. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1544/1/012178/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1544/1/...
  - uxhacker 2mo ago
    So they can be disabled from the ground? Why has russia not thought of that? Is that why Starlink is actually concerned about them been used by Ukraine?
    - ben_w 2mo ago
      It's unlikely Russia has a 3 megawatt laser and the optics to hit a satellite at this time. Anti-drone defence would be much easier with much worse than that. That said, the ongoing improvements to lasers, and price reductions, in a decade I expect the limiting factor for random terrorists performing such an attack would be adaptive optics to get past atmospheric distortion.
      - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
        I strongly believe China has this laser and adaptive optics capability today, they’re just not going to show their hand until they’re ready. Agree in a decade any rando will be able to accomplish this.
- drysine 2mo ago
  >of protecting the Starlink satellites Like shooting down all Russian satellites in retaliation? The US can produce and launch new satellites much faster than Russia.