Starlink and Russian Aggression

Dissecting the physics behind the threat

Yesterday WAPO’s David Ignatius hypothesized that Russia may be poised to attack commercial satellites, especially Starlink. As a recovering space operations officer who actually did real-world counterspace operations (attacking satellites in orbit), I would like to briefly add clarity to the conjecture.  

Ignatius’s reasoning seems to convolute two streams of recent reporting. First, Russians are using Starlink, (I wrote about this in the most recent edition of This Week in Ukraine), and second, the administration has intelligence that the Russians are developing and preparing to field some form of anti-satellite capability. He thus concludes that Russia must be targeting commercial satellites, like Starlink, saying, “the Russians might be planning to use directed-energy weapons or electromagnetic pulses in space that could disable commercial and military networks. Such systems could, for example, attack the exotic “mesh networks” that allow Starlink and other companies to bounce signals among their satellites before sending data back to Earth.”   

Let’s look at how the Russians might accomplish this. First, nuclear. They might explode one or more nuclear weapons in space. This would directly destroy satellites in proximity of the explosion, but space is big, and this attack wouldn’t take out a large percentage of satellites. It might create a messy debris field that would hinder, but not stop Starlink operations, especially given Starlink has over 5,000 operational satellites. This would be a clumsy and ineffective way to use nuclear bombs in space.

A better way would be to set off a nuclear explosion in what are called the Van Allen Belts (VABs). These are radioactive, high-energy particle clouds that begin at around 40,000 km from earth. Already semi-hazardous to satellites and humans, a nuclear explosion in the VABs would produce a hyperactive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would destroy any “non-hardened” (radioactive proofing found on most military satellites) satellites passing through. We know this because in 1962 we did it, destroying a number of our communications satellites. We’ve been worried for years that North Korea might try something like this. The problem with using this type of EMP attack on Starlink satellites is that they are in low earth orbit (LEO—about 550 km high for Starlink sats), plenty far from the VABs.

Another Russian technique might be to use rendezvous and proximity operations. This is using one satellite to attack another by flying up next to the target and using a physical method (e.g., claw, shotgun) to assault it. This might make sense against large, exquisitely expensive satellites, but again, there are over 5,000 Starlink sats. Nobody has time (or fuel) for that. Likewise for anti-satellite missiles, the type of which we sent into space from a US Navy Aegis destroyer in 2007.  

Cyber attack? No. This is Starlink, not Viasat. Starlink is from the maker of the most sophisticated self-driving electric cars in the world. Do you think Elon Musk is going to forget to “update his security patches,” or give out the administrative password to a phishing attack on the phone? Come on.

That leaves us with directed energy. It might be in the sexy form—lasers. With enough power a laser could take out all the Starlink sats from the surface of the earth. Even though these are in LEO, and much closer to the earth than other types of satellites, and although China has made significant progress on ground-based lasers attacking LEO sats, I doubt that the Russians have figured out how to maintain that power through the atmosphere. And, the technology of space-based lasers is probably too out of reach for Russia. Russia is most likely contemplating using a form of high-powered microwave to attack the Starlink transponders (the part of the satellite that sends the radio communications). Even this might be difficult, because LEO satellites move extremely fast (17,000 mph), and you have to be in just the right position to hit the transponders.

The Starlink constellation might be the safest in outer space right now. Its large number makes the constellation extremely robust. In case of attack, the relatively small size of the satellites makes reconstituting them (sending up more) very doable. The physics of attacking satellites makes surreptitious attacks hard, and Russia probably doesn’t want to incur more of the world’s wrath by messing up space with nukes. Russia might be leaning forward on their anti-satellite technology, but it won’t be against Starlink.