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this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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There are more sats than asat missiles. The math doesn't work out. Unless they use nukes or shotgun blasts or something to make the entirety of leo unusable.
You only need enough asat missiles to create enough debris. Kessler handles the rest.
Hense making the entirety of leo unusable
Eh, not for long. LEO everything falls eventually. HEO... that can take a long hot minute.
LEO we're still talking the better part of a decade, especially the derbies that get kicked to higher altitudes by the collisions. It's not as permanent as higher up, but it's still a strategic level capability, not tactical.
The numbers I've heard for LEO are like 4-5 years. But that point is whatever.
Kessler'ing the LEO means it's now harder to retaliate in HEO. It would be an easy win for Russia to knock out Starlink if the US government is actually relying on it in any meaningful capacity.
It sounds like they are using it as a backup for their geostationary sats which would be much higher resolution and data rate. But there aren't as many of them, so they're feasible to shoot down.
And also affects China and India, both nations that Russia relies on. Doubly on China who is developing their own LEO internet service.
Don't give them any ideas
It's okay, Starlink is in a low enough orbit that it's basically Kessler-proof.
They could just destroy enough in a given time and place to allow an attack or other ops to go through.
Probably can use a nuke to take out a lot.
Asat are cheaper to manufacture and deploy than it is for a satellite.
Really? Where are you getting that info? This estimates a starlink costs about 1M to build and launch. The SM-3, the US asat missile, costs at least 10M each. I think it's more for the asat variant, but I couldn't find numbers for that. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-estimated-cost-for-Starlink-satellites-to-provide-high-speed-internet-across-the-United-States#:~:text=According%20to%20one%20source%2C%20the,be%20around%20%2415%2D30%20billion. https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-defense-systems-2/missile-defense-systems/missile-interceptors-by-cost/