Research in China: 1000 special drones could disconnect Taiwan from Starlink

With immense technical effort, it would allegedly be possible to switch off the satellite internet Starlink for the entire island nation of Taiwan and to interrupt this connection to the outside world. At least that is what a Chinese research group is said to have discovered, whose results the South China Morning Post from Hong Kong has now made public. According to this, almost 1000 drones equipped with special and particularly strong jammers could disrupt all connections to Starlink on the island if they are coordinated in the sky above the island. Using weaker but cheaper technology would require approximately 2000 devices. Overall, the description sounds unrealistic, but according to the team, the results are also only preliminary.

It is not new that research is being conducted in China on how to disrupt or disable Starlink in the event of a conflict. The background is the experience in Ukraine, where the satellite internet of the US space company SpaceX by Elon Musk has proven to be particularly helpful. After the expansion of the Russian war of aggression in early 2022, Ukraine was able to maintain not only civilian communication in the war zone but also that of the military. This has made it one of the most important technologies for the defending state. Later, Taiwan, which is threatened by China, announced that in the event of an attack by China, it would switch to alternative forms of communication "immediately", including satellite internet like Starlink.

Hundreds of jammers on drones

As the newspaper summarizes, the research work was published in the journal Systems Engineering and Electronics and has been independently reviewed. It is not available online. The research group analyzed how the 36,000 km² island could be disconnected from Starlink using jamming technology. Drones capable of interrupting the signals would have to be positioned at an altitude of 20 km at a distance of 5 to 9 km. Given the size and the partly mountainous terrain of Taiwan, this sounds unrealistic in its entirety, but it might be enough to cover the major cities in the event of a conflict. However, the effectiveness of the approach would also depend on technical characteristics of Starlink that the research group does not know.

The presented approach sounds ambitious but less threatening than an alternative that has also been considered. Three years ago, it became public that a research group in the service of the Chinese army had simulated a possible attack on satellite constellations like Starlink with a nuclear bomb. At the time, it was stated that the detonation of a 10-megaton bomb at an altitude of 80 km could pose a serious threat to satellites without endangering the entire Earth orbit. Radioactive particles thrown into space could trigger malfunctions on satellites or even destroy them directly. Previously, it was demanded that China must be able to destroy the satellite internet Starlink if necessary.

China considers Taiwan (or the Republic of China) as part of its territory and officially strives for "reunification". The so-called Taiwan conflict has recently intensified again with the tensions between China and the USA, which act as Taiwan's protective power. A year and a half ago, the Dutch company ASML, for example, warned that it could also shut down the most modern lithography systems for semiconductor production remotely. This was likely intended as a warning to the People's Republic. It is also fundamentally dependent on Taiwan's chip industry, as only there can the most modern semiconductors be produced.

(mho)