While neither the regime nor SpaceX likes to reveal their cards, hackers and journalists are not deterred by this, and the laws of physics apply to everyone.
Good article. Very interesting.
TL;DR: Starlink recievers use methods to make it so they don’t have to be directly positioned at satellites; this in turn leaves them vulnerable to “side lobe jamming” and GPS spoofing. The suggestion is to point them directly and cover them i.e. in a pit or in a cavity of some such so that the jamming / spoofing doesn’t reach it.
Thanks for actually discussing the article instead of feeding the trolls
Iran is the most sanctioned country in the world yet 50,000 Starlink terminals somehow made their way in.
it turns out the not CIA run “National Endowment for Democracy” paid for them
I mean, if you want to promote division within a country, ensuring that countries citizenry has access to your propaganda is pretty important.
What is going to happen when countries decide that they don’t want starlink satellites over thei air space and start to blow them up?
It would be hard to do? How much would that affect the general use of starlink for users on other parts of the world?
Given that space isn’t owned by any one country, and Starlink is a US company, whose services are used by the US government, there’s a very good chance there would be military retaliation.
Look up Kessler syndrome for an answer as to what may happen if starlink satellites were attacked, although I think I recall people more knowledgeable than me stating this orbit is low enough where it may not be a permanent issue. Nations only control their airspace up to the Karman line which is 100km up. Starlink satellites are well beyond that.
It would be hard to do? How much would that affect the general use of starlink for users on other parts of the world?
Only two countries have demonstrated air launched rockets that can destroy satellites on orbit, the USA and Russia. There is good speculation that China has built anti-satellites satellites, but no one is aware of any actual proven test.
Here’s the USA’s anti-satellite rocket being launched on its one and only test:
Now, lets assume that all 3 countries decide they want to attack Starlink satellites at once with all their weapons. Perhaps they destroy 30 satellites in total. As of November 2025 the Starlink network surpassed 10,000 satellites in orbit. As for replacing the lost satellites, a single launch places 25 to 28 satellites in orbit at a time. Within the next 24 hours 25 more Starlink satellites will be launched:
In 4 days, another launch is occurring that will place 24 more Starlink satellites in orbit.
So destroying a few dozen Starlink satellites might cause a slight blip in coverage for maybe a few minutes tops in specific narrow geographic locations, but only for a little while until replacements move to positions.
Didn’t starlink satellites in really low orbit? Maybe you don’t need as sofisticate technology as with other satellites.
That picture of the F-15 jet firing the missile was at a satellite 300 miles up. Starlink satellites are about 350 miles up.
Destroying a few dozen satellites would probably kickstart a Kessler síndrome.
You’d never get Kessler syndrome at Starlink altitudes.
Starlink satellites orbit at around 550km, and get dragged by the little bit of atmosphere that is at that altitude. Each collision might make more debris, but the conservation of momentum means that any debris that gets kicked to a lower orbit will probably burn up on the atmosphere while any debris that gets kicked to a higher altitude will be smaller mass and therefore cause less damage on the next collision after that.
Collisions can still happen, but the runaway conditions where debris begets debris won’t happen at those orbital velocities and altitude.
Maybe, but not guaranteed. Starlink satellites aren’t very big (meaning not very large pieces if they blow up). Additionally, Starlink satellites have active avoidance systems that can “dodge” debris to a degree (its slow, but space is big). Lastly, because the pieces would be small, they’d experience more atmospheric drag and fall back to Earth faster. Whether that means weeks instead of years, I don’t know.
It’s hard to predict the outcome in such a chaotic event but starlink alone already does 100k+ collision avoidance maneuvers each year (can’t remember the exact number but is more than one every 2 minutes). It’s highly unlikely that we would be able to accurately track the newly formed debris of dozens of satellites blowing up and adjust the orbit of (potentially) hundreds of satellites in a few minutes.
Very hard to do. You need to be able to launch to the same orbits as the satellites and Starlink uses thousands of satellites, almost all of which will at some point fly over those countries. So they’d need to shoot them all down.
What about lasers?
I think ESA had an idea about deorbiting space debris using lasers.
- Iran is not a ‘regime’. US and the West are. You are just regurgitating primitive US propaganda.
- CIA and Mossad uses Starlink to have contact with their operators on ground. Thousands and thousands of Starlink terminals were sent to local CIA/Mossad agitators that could then report/record the ‘color-revolution’ they created, back to the western propaganda machine. BBC had direct connection to the live propaganda from before the unrest started.
- Why on Earth should ‘people do something’ about Iran defending themselves from an obvious US “regime change” operation ?? Hindering Iran in defending themselves, are just supporting US and Israel in their psychopatic behavior, and revealing that one haven’t yet discarded the Western propaganda.
By now, the US lead ‘regime-change operation’ have failed - miserably. Millions of Iranians went on to the streets and protested pro government, and against the small group of artificially agitated rioters than stood for all the violence/provocations (and filmed/sent via starlink oc).
The ugly and very unpleasant truth for us privacy oriented people, is that US are using us as internet-warriors to breach firewalls setup by attacked nations. ANY nation that does not have an internet firewall and their own social media, will get their population propagandized and be hi-jacked/politically colonized by the US Plutocracy. The ‘wevil ones’ are proclaimed as Dictators/Authoritarians in violent regimes that oppress their people, but the only thing these nations do ‘wrong’, is that they won’t surrender their nations to the US/Western overlords. A fair and humble wish, I think.
Chinese, Russian and Iranian people don’t need us to fight for their ‘freedom’, bc they have much more freedom than we do in the West, and it is us that are completely propagandized to believe that everyone else is ‘savages’ and needs our Oligarchs to come in and ‘put things in order’ - we are no better than the common shitters of the past that supported and allowed the wipeout of the wevil Indians, supported slavery and colonization throughout the West.
We still moronically believe the embarrassing US narrative of the ‘Wevil non-civilized regimes’ out there, and thus supports the US Plutocracy in constantly killing off/terrorizing millions of people and dozens of peaceful nations/people… Yay for us - the progressive west…
Ok buddy. Listen just because the West and the USA are kinda broken and doing fucked up shit right now, doesn’t automatically make “the other side” right or good.
This is the biggest problem with goobers like this, they hate the US, with good reason, but don’t quite grasp that the people the US are fighting aren’t automatically the good guys.
So they end up supporting some pretty horrific regimes.
The fact that you think the US is only doing fucked up shit “right now” shows that you have no understanding of US imperialism and colonialism.
Iran government bad. US government and Jewish ISIS are way worse, and not just now.
I didn’t say they haven’t done fucked up shit forever. I’m saying jumping on the fact that they are doing messed up shit right now doesn’t make the “other side” right. No matter how bad the US is, it has no impact on the opinion of their enemies.
Chinese, Russian and Iranian people don’t need us to fight for their ‘freedom’, bc they have much more freedom than we do in the West
JFC you’re an idiot
So the people killing women for partially uncovering their hair are the good guys?
The people murdering thousands of protestors are the good guys?
So the religious fundamentalists imposing doctrine at gunpoint are the good guys?
I think the people protesting for their lives and freedoms are the good guys, but that’s just me.
You morons will simp for the biggest dictatorial muderers as long as they are anti-west. Go live in Russia if you’re so gung-ho about their freedoms, and try not to get volunteered
Chinese, Russian and Iranian people don’t need us to fight for their ‘freedom’,
Oh look, yet another Tankie who thinks the grass would be greener where the lawn describes itself as communist.
How’s that “more freedom” been going for the Uyghur? Or maybe you meant the freedom to free-fall out a window when running as a political opposition to Putin?
Least insane .ml tankie
‘he was downvoted for speaking the truth’
