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Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

newscientist.com

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Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#21

Post by Joel_Mckay »

_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #14

In Canada, the CF is working on rebuilding their expertise in HF radio, as they realized that in case of large scale conflict, satellite systems aren't going to be dependable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_Affiliate_Radi...

Canada has a lot of obscure technology that would normally fall under export restriction in the US.

The problem I have with the Canadian business culture was there is zero protection on a global scale for your company, privacy, and or personal safety. =3

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#22

Post by jordanb »

I think the next big war will involve a kessler syndrome, not because people start firing off anti-satellite weapons (since there's a strong component of MAD in doing that) but because the belligerents will have their own multi-thousand satellite constellations in orbit and they will quit coordinating with one another on collision avoidance.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#23

Post by elevation »

_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #14

In Canada, the CF is working on rebuilding their expertise in HF radio, as they realized that in case of large scale conflict, satellite systems aren't going to be dependable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_Affiliate_Radi...

Any serious journalist/aid work efforts should be doing the same. It's too easy for countries to disable terrestrial internet to suppress reporting. And it's too easy for AI to generate believable but false video evidence. But if you can afford to put a man on the ground, he can get information into the next hemisphere with just a sandwich sized radio and a spool of wire -- a fantastic backup against inevitable systemic disruptions.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#24

Post by ciupicri »

jmyeet wrote: post #11
kolinko wrote: post #2

The thing is - without Falcon9 / Starship they really cannot - both China and EU are ~10-20 years (sic) behind SpaceX, and without thousands of satellites on LEO you just cannot have terminal similar to SpaceX's. (And don't get me started on how bad Iris2 is/will be. It's a program that EU has to shut down discussions on how terribly behind we are. The last time I checked, a year ago, EU's plans were to have first Fa…

The story I like to tell is about the Manhattan Project. This caused a debate in US strategic circles that set policy for the entire post-1945 world. Debate included whether a preemptive nuclear strike on the USSR was necessary or even just a good idea. Anyway, many in these circles thought the USSR would take 20 years to develop the bomb if they ever did. It took 4 years. The hydrogen bomb? The USA tested theirs in…

> many in these circles thought the USSR would take 20 years to develop the bomb if they ever did. It took 4 years.

Because some people committed treason and gave the technology to the Soviets.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#25

Post by SlinkyOnStairs »

mooreds wrote: post #7
thisislife2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what makes Falcon9 / Starship special (or needed) to launch these satellites? China, India, EU, Japan etc. all have the capability to launch satellites. So why is a Falcon9 / Starship a particular requirement?

Cost, maybe? It is one thing to ship up a valuable satellite (which they all can do). But to ship up 1000s of satellites (and keep doing it in perpetuity, because IIRC they don't have a long lifetime[0]) gets expensive. 0: Looks like 5 years. https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html

Another major detail is that SpaceX is simply burning enormous amounts of money on this.

Starlink's revenue is comparable to the ESA's entire 5 billion euro budget, and it still looks like starlink is not net-profitable as a service. (And kessler syndrome avoidance is already pushing up costs with the lower orbits)

The chief problem "stopping" other countries from developing a starlink competitor is that starlink simply doesn't make all that much sense if your country is capable of basic infrastructure construction. Fiber runs are expensive but not that expensive.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#26

Post by jmyeet »

There's a deeper message here. I believe that countries around the world are moving towards a stance that the US is an unreliable partner and that their national security depends on not being reliant upon the US.

An obvious place for this is that I think the EU will follow China's stance on not wanting to be beholden to US tech companies. The EU will bootstrap this by requiring EU government services to be hosted on platforms run by EU companies subject to EU jurisdiction. Think EU AWS. This is easier said than done.

But this is really a consequence of the current administration having absolutely no idea what they're doing and they're intentionally and unintentionally destroying American soft power.

Another way this can come to pass is that the EU decides that the US is an unreliable partner for their security needs so you will find that various weapons, vehicles, platforms, etc for EU militaries will be supplied by local companies, particularly if the US effectively abandons Ukraine.

Starlink is just another piece of that.

The current administration paints NATO as Europe taking advantage of the US. It could not be more wrong. NATO is a protection racket for the US to sell weapons and control European foreign policy.

We kind of saw a precursor to all this with GPS. For anyone who has been around long enough, GPS used to be less accurate, deliberately. Why? Because defence (apparently). There was a special signal, Selective Ability ("SA") [1], that military gear could decode to be more accurate.

Fun fact: one of the clues to the first Gulf War was that the military turned off SA on the commercial GPS system because they couldn't procure enough military equipment so had to use civilian gear [2].

I think Europe was slow to learn the lesson of being completely reliant on the US but we did end up with Glonass and Galileo as a result.

To exert the kind of control the US does through tech platfoorms, the US needs to be predictable and reliable can't be too overt with exerting political influence such that American imperial subjects can pretend they're still independent. This administration has shattered that illusion.

[1]: https://www.gps.gov/selective-availability

[2]: https://www.spirent.com/blogs/selective-availability-a-bad-m...

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#27

Post by josefritzishere »

It's worth pointing out that aside from Elons behavior the real issue with Starlink is that it's insolvent. Starlink does not make money. (The solvency gap is hotly debated) But that fact means it's long-term reliability is in question. No military wants to risk that kind of system dependency.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#28

Post by childintime »

jordanb wrote: post #22

I think the next big war will involve a kessler syndrome, not because people start firing off anti-satellite weapons (since there's a strong component of MAD in doing that) but because the belligerents will have their own multi-thousand satellite constellations in orbit and they will quit coordinating with one another on collision avoidance.

A smaller player like North Korea and Iran would not have as much to lose. Iran is doing something similar today, suicide bombing everything it can.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#29

Post by tehjoker »

jordanb wrote: post #22

I think the next big war will involve a kessler syndrome, not because people start firing off anti-satellite weapons (since there's a strong component of MAD in doing that) but because the belligerents will have their own multi-thousand satellite constellations in orbit and they will quit coordinating with one another on collision avoidance.

These LEO satellites are low enough that I imagine a Kessler situation would self-resolve within a few years.

Re: Militaries are scrambling to create their own Starlink

#30

Post by bryanlarsen »

spwa4 wrote: post #16
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #14

In Canada, the CF is working on rebuilding their expertise in HF radio, as they realized that in case of large scale conflict, satellite systems aren't going to be dependable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_Affiliate_Radi...

Ever notice just how many countries seem to be pretty convinced war is coming? And don't tell me it's all Trump, at the very least they believe that whoever follows Trump isn't going to be very different. Plus it's mostly EU that's rearming, and surely they aren't afraid they'll be attacked ...

Militaries have to always behave like there is a war coming soon. They might not believe that one is coming soon, but they have to behave like it is. If they don't, they won't be prepared when one does happen.
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