>Few big nukes are enough to take out all satellites.
Um, no. Not even vaguely remotely. "Thousands of satellites" is a lot by historical human space standards, but compare that to the number of cars you see every day and then remember these are spread out over an area bigger then the surface of the entire planet. Don't be fooled by the simulation maps you can find online, where the satellites and tracks are shown thousands of times bigger then they would be to scale because otherwise they couldn't be seen. They are very, very far apart. Even on the ground, "a few big nukes" wouldn't do diddly. And nukes do less, not more, damage in space. A lot of the damage enhancement effects of nukes comes from their interaction with atmosphere. In a vacuum, it's only direct radiation which falls by the square of the distance, and satellites are of course designed to handle plenty of thermal and ionizing radiation all the time already by virtue of being designed for space. But Starlink sats aren't so high that Kessler syndrome is a concern either, there's plenty of atmospheric drag to bring debris down without active boosting.
GP is correct and I don't understand the downvotes: as far as physical resilience goes the Starlink constellation is a pretty damn hard target on an absolute basis, even before we get into the geopolitics of some country trying to shoot down US property that is also a US strategic asset.
> Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles (1,450 km) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms, and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian Islands.
Yes, very good you're capable of a simplistic wikipedia search. Now I'd like you to try thinking about the paragraph you just linked for a moment: is "Hawaii", the "300 streetlights", "numerous burglar alarms", and a "microwave link" in the atmosphere (and on the ground, or indeed literally the ground) or in Earth orbit? If you read further, you'll find that the mechanism of generation involves the interaction of the gamma ray emissions with the atmosphere and Earth's magnetic field, that at 500km+ the effect are is reduced, and then find that in your example of Starfish Prime the primary damage to the satellites it affected was not due to EMP at all but rather because the test created radiation belts that damaged solar panels as satellites passed through. This would reduce design lifetime but isn't an immediate killer of everything. You'd need far more then a couple of nukes.
Of course, purposefully detonating nuclear weapons to create large scale NEMP effects might well still disrupt Starlink to the degree that it'd effect any piece of ground electronics, because the ground effects would be far, far worse. The satellite constellation could be ok enough to still be functional at reduced capacity, but if terminals and ground stations get toasted that's not immediately helpful. But that directly leads, again, to the fact that you're talking about LAUNCHING A NUCLEAR WAR ON THE ENTIRE WORLD here. No internet is going to be doing very well!
not saying it isn't. I was the evangelist of it in 2022 and seen the pentagon salivating at what they've seen and rightly so.
what it isn't is indestructible, though - and we don't know the capability of nukes designed specifcally to cause the Kessler syndrome in LEO for a few years. if I was China I'd have a project for this commissioned by Jan 2023.
> we don't know the capability of nukes designed specifcally to cause the Kessler syndrome in LEO for a few years
I wouldn't even consider a nuke for that. Energetic plasma ball resulting from nuke is not effective method to do so and any debris that survives the explosion isn't going to still be in LEO, but also no plausible deniability because it's obviously a nuke.
Try "we launched a satelite and it RUDed (honest we pinky swear it wasn't just a loose heap of ball bearings like it appears on radar) and now LEO is marginally more dangerous".
I always assumed that Starshield (DoD starlink) exists so that the DoD can make strategic geopolitical decisions (like giving satcom c&c to Ukrainian suicide drones in Crimea) without painting a target on the back of SpaceX’s big moneymaker.
They famously did not want to get involved in the war.
I imagine DoD having their own constellation with equivalent tech was the deal set up to give the Russians and whoever else a different set of targets to retaliate against, push comes to shove.
I'm guessing the previous poster meant "a few big nukes" Starfish Prime-style, used to generate EMPs.(I don't know if Starlink satellites are protected, but my guess is they are not.)
Um, no. Not even vaguely remotely. "Thousands of satellites" is a lot by historical human space standards, but compare that to the number of cars you see every day and then remember these are spread out over an area bigger then the surface of the entire planet. Don't be fooled by the simulation maps you can find online, where the satellites and tracks are shown thousands of times bigger then they would be to scale because otherwise they couldn't be seen. They are very, very far apart. Even on the ground, "a few big nukes" wouldn't do diddly. And nukes do less, not more, damage in space. A lot of the damage enhancement effects of nukes comes from their interaction with atmosphere. In a vacuum, it's only direct radiation which falls by the square of the distance, and satellites are of course designed to handle plenty of thermal and ionizing radiation all the time already by virtue of being designed for space. But Starlink sats aren't so high that Kessler syndrome is a concern either, there's plenty of atmospheric drag to bring debris down without active boosting.
GP is correct and I don't understand the downvotes: as far as physical resilience goes the Starlink constellation is a pretty damn hard target on an absolute basis, even before we get into the geopolitics of some country trying to shoot down US property that is also a US strategic asset.