I'm not involved in this stuff anymore (now retired), but it's possible that the Starshield constellation supports transmitting on S-band (or L-Band) as a means to relay SGLS communications to satellites that are out-of-view. Having this capability would greatly benefit the workflow of transfer orbit operations and initial testing, by eliminating the constraint that the satellite must be in-view to communicate with it. It would also benefit anomaly resolution by allowing instant access to a malfunctioning spacecraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Control_Network
https://www.orbitalfocus.uk/Frequencies/FrequenciesSGLS.php
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/473264/af-sp...
That's interesting, thank you for the great comment. Would that kind of usage then not be counter to the standards, as suggested in the article?
The fact that somebody saw something pointed at Earth on a frequency generally reserved for uplinks doesn't necessarily mean that it would interfere with other spacecraft receiving the signals from the ground. Starlink (and presumably Starshield) operates in LEO, below most other LEO spacecraft. Maybe they're using a dish or even a phased array antenna, and pointing down instead of up. If so, the probability of interference is low.
It is not hard to assume that there is a significant DoD rideshare payload involved on the existing commercial satellites. Having a sensor platform on every single one would be incredible. The satellites that have been officially branded as Starshield (~183 we know of) could be part of cover or a more "kinetic" mission profile.
If I was in charge at the Pentagon, I would want every one of those 10k birds to have my sensor package on it. I also don't think I would permit a commercial spaceflight vendor to perform as many launches as SpaceX has performed without some kind of arrangement like this in place.
I’m sure SpaceX is happy to take the DoD’s money, doubt there’s any strong arming needed.
And as soon as any data from a specific sensor leaks, adversaries would likely be able to pinpoint what satellite produced it.
And then the contractual terms mandating commercial spaceflight vendors do this work.
It all gets really complicated, with many thousands of people who are not part of traditional intelligence services all having to keep a massive secret.
Are we sure about that? Because i see plenty of clearance required job listings to their redmond facility.
> And as soon as any data from a specific sensor leaks, adversaries would likely be able to pinpoint what satellite produced it.
Yeah. Thats why usually data from any satelite would be very closely held. Even with old satelites it was a big deal when the president just posted an image publicly.
But i don’t understand your argument. Even if it leaks that wouldn’t make the sensor network worthless. Like this argument is true for any spy satelite. If the data from any sensor leaks it is bad. Not a reason to not make the satelite.
At the same time: coverage comes cheap to Starlink. Which makes it perfect for serving areas no one wants to serve. Such as rural areas, anything outside the largest cities in underdeveloped countries, the open ocean, and so it goes.
Can you explain what you mean by this? Still not sure how SAR would fit in here...
...could comprehensive SAR over the Earth's oceans uncloak submerged submarines when they're under power?
Can it (a SAR sat doing a flyover) somehow be detected from ground?
I wonder if Starshield is the platform that is supposed to replace the E-3.
Why didn't the article author bother to read this?
How do you know they didn't?
Scott Tilley isn't in space. He detected these signals. The material question is if those signals are propagating upwards.
You need only to track it and shoot your laser up there (its only 500km) and if it can't dissipate the energy fast enough, it would overheat.
That said, they are dazzlers and not destroyers — they're designed to prevent American recce satellites from cuing American strategic bombers to the location of mobile missile launchers, so just dazzling the satellite's primary sensor accomplishes their task. Of course, that won't work against space-based SAR, but they have RF jammers (and decoys) for that.
B. The Russians already have this tech and have "practiced" with it a few times, so have already added untold hazards in orbit.
C. The people that cause these problems, ignore the hazards left behind and let others simply die.
This is a horrific idea and not new. Let's not do more of it.
Consumer grade / privat buyable laser can easily be bought.
And would i destroy a soda can by overheating it slowly and steadily because the can has no easy way of dissipating heat and has electronics in it which are not heat resistent?
Oh come on you guys I thought this would be my ticket to 6000 ;—;
And of course all communication managed by modern ICs is done with some kind of spread spectrum protocol with the property that "interference" is a routine/expected thing that doesn't degrade service. You can't break a modern satellite with an accidental transmission, you have to deliberately "jam" it.
Is the ITU rule in question being violated? Probably. Is that actually impactful to real systems? Almost certainly not. Old rules are old. Our goal should be to work together to update them for the benefit of all (to be sure, not to violate them with impunity!), and not to scream about them as part of a proxy war about the CEO's political and conspiracy proclivities.
(2) Defending these norms is important to prevent chaos on the radio bands. If we can do this, why not China? Russia? Europe? Erosion of norms has real consequences when you are dealing with a scarce resource like RF spectrum.
> Erosion of norms has real consequences when you are dealing with a scarce resource like RF spectrum.
So... no, that's wrong. Like 99% of all wireless data transferred anywhere is squeezed into a paltry 100 MHz in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, with no effective guardrails of any kind about who can use it, or with how many devices.
Technology fixed this problem, dedicated bands have little to no value anymore[1], haven't for like two decades now, and any discussion like this needs to treat with that as a prior.
Again, we all know this story isn't about rigorous adherence to international norms. It's about Musk doing shady spy stuff.
[1] Outside some otherwise important edge cases like radio astronomy which aren't "communication" as generally understood.
These are Starshields, not Starlinks. These are not operated by SpaceX. In the same way Boeing isn't spying on comms by building / launching an NRO satellite.
We should have done that A LOT slower without breaking shit left and right.
Edit: Because of the one downvote: It affects astronomy and a PRIVATE company has impact on a war like in ukraine. And they are violating shit just because its Musk
The number of people that benefits from security provided by the military is not the same as the number of people that subscribe to starlink internet.
>The use of those frequencies to "downlink" data runs counter to standards set by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency
So, just another instance of the current admin violating an international treaty the US is part of.
Might that be the point? A space-based means of "hacking" satellites? Or is that kind of a dumb thing to do when you could do the same Earth-based?
