Chinese researchers have been exploring ways to wage electronic warfare on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network.
The team ran a simulation involving high-altitude jammers over a site in eastern China which established that nearly 1,000 drones would be needed to block the network over an area the size of Taiwan.
Why It Matters
Starlink is the world’s largest satellite internet network, with more than 8,000 operational in low-Earth orbit. It first proved its wartime potential in Ukraine, when it kept Kyiv’s forces connected in the critical early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Chinese officials have previously said they view Starlink as a national security threat and have been investing heavily in advanced electronic and cyberwarfare, in addition to conventional forces, as Beijing ramps up military pressure against Taiwan. China claims the self-ruled island as its territory, and says unification is inevitable, through force if necessary.
Newsweek reached out to Starlink by email with a request for comment.
What To Know
A team from the Beijing Institute of Technology and Zhejiang University published their findings in Systems Engineering and Electronics on November 5. Unlike traditional satellite networks that use a few fixed satellites in geostationary orbit, Starlink’s low-Earth orbit constellation is highly dynamic, constantly shifting the coverage over any point on the ground.
“The orbital planes of Starlink are not fixed, and the movement trajectories of the constellation are highly complex, with the number of satellites entering the visible area constantly changing,” wrote one BIT researcher, Yang Zhuo, per the South China Morning Post. The phased-array antennas and the ease with which operators in the U.S. can change satellite carrier frequencies make the network even more difficult to compromise.
To test a countermeasure, the Chinese team ran a virtual simulation of a “cloud” of high-altitude jammers—drones or balloons—spaced 5 to 9 kilometers apart, each emitting interference. This grid would form an electromagnetic shield, with each jammer able to block Starlink over an area up to 38.5 square kilometers (14.8 square miles).
To disrupt coverage over all of Taiwan (about 36,000 square kilometers), their model showed at least 935 high-powered jammers—or up to 2,000 lower-powered ones—would be needed. The team conducted a 12-hour small-scale simulation at a site in eastern China.
What People Are Saying
The team wrote: “If it becomes possible in the future to obtain actual measurements of the radiation pattern data of Starlink user terminals, and to acquire empirically measured values of the suppression coefficients for these terminals, it would help achieve more accurate assessment results.”
Yan Jiajie and Yu Nanping, researchers at East China Normal University, wrote in China’s Journal of International Security Studies, as translated by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank: “Musk has positioned Starlink as a commercial satellite internet project, but its military application prospects are very broad as well…If these applications are used in the military, they will further enhance the U.S. military’s combat capabilities.”
What Happens Next
It’s unclear how effective the jamming method explored in the study would be at scale or in real-world conditions. Also unknown is whether SpaceX would provide Starlink service to Taiwan in a conflict scenario.
While the U.S. is Taiwan’s main arms supplier, Washington maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would directly intervene in Chinese invasion scenario.