This issue has been such a mess, demonstrating how low reporting standards have dropped. For starters, the only thing Ukraine has been prevented from using Starlink for is as a guidance system for drones.
On top of that, SpaceX asked for the government to fund Ukraine's use of Starlink, and if they were so worried about its importance, they should've just done that. It seems more than a little absurd to argue that SpaceX - unlike literally every other defense contractor - should both be footing most of the bill for the service and should have no say over how the service is then used.
Then, adding on to that, there's a huge difference in terms of regulations between a US company essentially supplying long range guidance systems (and ongoing services which enable those systems) of its own volition to a foreign nation involved in a war and a US company contracted by the DoD to supply the same. This should especially considered in the context that the US has been extremely careful in limiting the range of the weapons it has supplied to Ukraine (with exactly the same reasoning SpaceX has used of not wanting to enable an escalation in the conflict), while Starlink is able to handle guidance well beyond that.
This idiotic senator might as well be asking how they can trust ULA to keep launching satellites for the DoD when they won't unconditionally launch Rwanda's 300k satellite megaconstellation for free.
There’s a saying: "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
The problem as I see it isn’t the satellites specifically, they want to have a firm of understanding of what can and cannot happen.
When you’re moving millions/billions of dollars of hardware, where mistakes cost lives, you bet I want to be sure I know what a CEO can and cannot decide on a whim. Especially this particular CEO with his many recent very public and very bad whims (across multiple companies, not just SpaceX).
Not just whims, this particular CEO has massive business interests in China which will result in a major conflict of interest in a potential US-China direct or indirect conflict.
"Tesla, as the only 100% foreign-owned automaker in China, holds a privileged place, but it holds it tenuously. The risk that China could retaliate against Tesla in response to U.S. or European sanctions or policies China finds distasteful has always been present": https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501080-a-new-tesla-risk-ru...
Elon Musk was literally spit on by the Russians before starting SpaceX. There was also the long going spat with the former head of Roscosmos with him calling the Falcon 9 a "broomstick" and saying that NASA will need a trampoline to get to space and Elon Musk playing into those jokes.
It's amazing how much people forget history and only remember recent events.
> Not just whims, this particular CEO has massive business interests in China which will result in a major conflict of interest in a potential US-China direct or indirect conflict.
Most CEOs of most large companies have large business interests in China. If it's a concern for one it's a concern for all.
You do NOT fuck with ITAR. You are personally liable for any violations and it can result in jail time for you, personally. And the company is liable too.
I would hope anybody in that chain of command knows that, and tells him to go fuck himself if he drops even the hint of exporting it.
> CEFC China Energy, which has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and People's Liberation Army, paid entities controlled by the then-cash-strapped Hunter Biden or his uncle James Biden $4.8 million over the course of 14 months beginning in 2017, according to The Washington Post.
I’m often left nonplussed at how many people seem satisfied with a “Enh, that’s not what’s happening this moment and it probably won’t ever happen…” for all kinds of issues.
That’s completely non-reassuring. But even worse: it’s very concerning when someone is reassured by it.
Like logistics, individual events are not really interesting or meaningful. I want to understand the possibility space.
Indeed. And if Starlink is used in guidance for offensive drone operations, Russia is going to view those satellites as legitimate military targets. I’m not convinced the people criticizing SpaceX’s decision to not do that (for free) have thought this all the way through.
Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? (I'm pretty sure GPS is used for guidance of drones and missiles pretty heavily there.)
Or for a satellite top be a legit target the communication needs to be two-way? In such case I suspect Türksat satellite should be considered within scope, since Bayraktar TB2S (which reportedly has been used by Ukraine in this war) uses it for SATCOM.
What about other military uses of Starlink, outside of guidance systems? Those are plentiful, and it's hard to see why there would be a drastic difference between guiding a drone and providing communication backbone for military operation coordination in the eyes of the Russians. After all, they are bombing civilian infrastructure just fine, and didn't even care to formally declare this "special military operation" a war...
My point being, I don't think "legitimate target" has to do anything with Russia not shooting down any satellites; it's either lack of capacity or fear of retaliation, both being rather orthogonal to the targets "legitimacy" IMO.
I am damn sure that GPS satellites are a military target! They are even owned by a military organisation. It just so happens that organisation is the most powerful military power in the world. Given that, the next best thing is to jam GPS signals on the ground and I would be very surprised the Russians are not doing it at some scales.
I highly doubt Americans gave the Ukrainians the keys for the special modulation that bypasses usual jamming abilities.
Yeah I agree that SpaceX's concern is unlikely over potential attacks on their satellites. Not only is SpaceX able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down, attacking a Starlink satellite would be an act of war against the US regardless.
I think SpaceX's concern is more related to domestic liability. The US's policy has been that they will not provide offensive aid for attacking into Russia. They've been very careful about the range of the systems they send for that reason.
Unrestricted Starlink is not subject to those range limits. So, if the attacks which went deep into Russian territory involved Starlink mounted to drones, it would essentially be in violation of the US's own stated policy about military aid to Ukraine. Thus far this hasn't caused any trouble, but if something were to happen (eg an escalation), SpaceX might get thrown under the bus by the US government since they aren't contracted by the DoD to provide such service.
SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until, mysteriously, "SpaceX" suddenly was coincidental to Elon Musk having his Twitter breakdown when he decided he personally was going to negotiate peace for Ukraine[1] and was promptly rebuffed by the Ukrainian foreign minister.
Then, totally coincidentally[2] suddenly "SpaceX" had very big corporate concerns about how Starlink was used and also wanted more money from the DoD at a higher commercial rate[3] and...
You know, just a whole pile of totally normal coincidences...
>SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until...
If they weren't worried about these issues, why are they very explicitly spelled out in the Starlink terms of service?
The issue came up because Ukraine violated the terms of service by using them as command/control of an explosive drone boat system.
You're just making things up.
Biden administration decided to halt plans to weaponize space started under Trump. This mothballing decision was made in early 2022 and led to said reactions by Elon.
>SpaceX is able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down
This doesnt seem correct to me. Building, launching, and positioning replacement satellites to fill gaps in service seems like it would take much more effort and cost than a takedown.
Can you further expand on why you think your claim is accurate?
Russia doesn't have 3500 ASAT missiles and can't build (and launch) them at a rate of ~50 per week (it's estimated that they produce ~50 cruise missiles per month).
Admittedly they don't have to shoot down 3500 sats, probably only the sats in the group servicing Ukraine, but that's still a couple hundred sats and thus, likely more than the Russian ASAT stockpile.
The only two ways I can see to make ASAT logistics work against large constellations like Starlink is if they figure out laser-based ASAT or an in-orbit attack mechanism that shoots multiple cheap missiles/bullets (avoiding expensive separate launch per target). Neither sounds impossible, though.
Yeah it's difficult to envision a truly cost effective ASAT measure, "shooting" bullets is deceptive in that it'd still require carrying the large amount of fuel needed to effectively change orbit (especially for changing inclination) and would be a bit too messy in terms of spread of the resulting debris.
Another interesting and clean approach might be jamming the satellites from orbit. You can't go after all the satellites, but since you can predict which ones will be over when you're doing something important, you can launch vehicles to approach specifically those and jam them at close range.
One hit will create thousands of fragments. How many consecutive hits would be necessary to create severe enough Kessler event to destroy most of the Stralink satellites? Dozens?
Blowing up dozens of satellites would start a chain reaction that if left unchecked will eventually bring down all of them. But I doubt it would happen over a timeframe that's useful for this war. We arguably are already in a Kessler syndrome situation where fragments are created faster than they deorbit, but like any exponential process it starts out incredibly slow.
Space is big. The average breakup seems to create about 300 fragments [1], so if Russia blows up 100 Starlink satellites that's 30,000 bullets that have to randomly hit another 3500 objects spread over an area roughly the area of the surface of the earth. Except that it's worse because space is 3-dimensional and most bullets will spend little time at that altitude, and eventually deorbit. Over a decade it will do a lot of damage, and at some point things will escalate to a point where it's hard to handle. But Russia needs results within weeks or at most months.
No it wouldn't bring down all of them. They are not all on the same level and they can raise and lower their level. Debris analysis would be done and the fleet would be commanded to move strategically.
Causing a chain reaction is significantly more difficult then people think.
As everyone knows, the best possible way to deal with an aggressor is just straight appeasement. The risks are so large that appeasement is the only answer. If only we had historically tried appeasing belligerent foreign powers, think what wars would have been avoided... /sarcasm
Ironically this only further proves the point: US expansionist foreign policy would not have been checked by giving the US what it wanted. There was no version of Iraq complying with the UN which was going to prevent the neo-conservatives from getting their regime change invasion in 2003.
The only preventative measures which would've worked would be diplomatic and economic counter-pressure from the UN and more specifically Europe and other NATO allies, or substantial military build up capable of seriously endangering US conventional forces.
Ukraine would be in a much different military position today if it were a pariah state, as opposed to a nation declaring a strong intent to join both the EU and NATO. Turns out diplomacy, allies and soft-power are actually kind of useful things when you're not the dominant military hegemon.
Yes. The lesson from history is that no appeasement should ever be done. Any war, no matter how small or over how little a thing, MUST ALWAYS BE TOTAL. No war should ever end until one nation enacts genocide on another. Great plan.
So I'm sure you have literally any example of when that worked, historically?
Spoiler: it has never worked. What you are thinking of are diplomatic, economic and military moves and counter-moves or negotiated settlements but the aggressor is always forced to compromise or delayed such that they lose their advantage.
Appeasement - the aggressor making demands and getting them with the idea that they will be then be satisfied - has never worked.
>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now?
GPS is a US military asset and consequently a military target for hostile actors.
The only thing keeping Russia from just blowing them out of the sky is because to do so would be an unconditional declaration and act of war against the USA.
And because they are using it in their planes and within their units. Sure you can argue with Glonass, but if it is working so well, why SU-34s are using Garmin with GPS instead?
>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now?
Of course it does. In the real world, anything is permissible (because there is no global federal government) as long as you have the strength to enforce. In the case of GPS satellite constellation, that is infrastructure owned and operated by the US military, so any attack on those satellites brings Russia directly into conflict with the US and NATO.
>My point being, I don't think "legitimate target" has to do anything with Russia not shooting down any satellites; it's either lack of capacity or fear of retaliation, both being rather orthogonal to the targets "legitimacy" IMO.
Right ... To rephrase: is the US military willing to indemnify Starlink to the same degree if it is attacked by Russia?
You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure. Maybe a huge explosion at some vital oil infrastructure or actually destroying the bridge to Crimea.
>You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure.
It doesn't necessarily imply that that IFF Starlink is providing military assistance to Ukraine, and in response, Russia targets Starlink satellites, that the US will necessarily escalate further. And there is precedence for this. For example, after US assassinated Soleimani, and Iran retaliated against an American base in Iraq (leading to ~100 casualties - though no deaths, and extensive damage to the base itself), America did not further escalate.
> US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites orbit at about 800 km (500 mi) high and move at 7.5 km/s (4.7 mi/s), so a Chinese Intermediate-range ballistic missile would need to compensate for 1350 km (840 mi) of movement in the three minutes it takes to boost to that altitude. Even if an ISR satellite is knocked out, the US possesses an extensive array of manned and unmanned ISR aircraft that could perform missions at standoff ranges from Chinese land-based air defences, making them somewhat higher priority targets that would consume fewer resources to better engage.
> The Global Positioning System and communications satellites orbit at higher altitudes of 20000 km (12000 mi) and 36000 km (22000 mi) respectively, putting them out of range of solid-fuelled Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Liquid-fuelled space launch vehicles could reach those altitudes, but they are more time-consuming to launch and could be attacked on the ground before being able to launch in rapid succession. The constellation of 30 GPS satellites provides redundancy where at least four satellites can be received in six orbital planes at any one time, so an attacker would need to disable at least six satellites to disrupt the network.
Just to clarify that the Starlink service isn’t being provided for free — many of volunteers (and not just them) are paying for subscriptions with their credit cards. [1]
I’m sure there are additional costs for Starlink operations in Ukraine vs other countries, such as extra measures against jamming etc so the operation is less profitable in Ukraine than elsewhere.
And from what I understand there are some terminals that work without a subscription (although I haven’t seen any info about them specifically).
Kessler syndrome isn't magic.
Space is big. Starlink satalites are small. And they're low enough thst atmospheric drag will deorbit must of the small debris very quickly.
Considering that StarLink satellites have a orbital period of ~95 minutes, I doubt that debris fields de-orbiting "very quickly" as you so precisely put it will be quick enough.
And even so, just shotgun your payload of tungsten flechettes into a orbit a bit higher than the satellites and let gravity do the rest.
I'm sure people smarter than me have considered these scenarios and done the economic math.
I really wonder about space junk if we start down this road, would the debris stay in orbit spinning round the earth or would it be pulled into the atmosphere?
It would come down, most of it very quickly, the rest eventually. The satellites are low enough to deorbit from drag alone within five years or so if their thrusters fail. Blowing them up increases surface area, which increases drag, bringing most of it down much faster.
The way orbit mechanics works, if you impart energy on an object at just one point in its orbit, the orbit will change overall but still go through that point. Some debris will be put in an elliptical orbit where it will start crossing higher altitudes, but will also still cross the original altitude, causing it to be affected by drag and eventually deorbit.
The worry is what it would damage until it comes down. At some debris density you start setting off a chain reaction (and arguably we are already there, it's just very slow right now)
As the parent comment explained, unless the debris reaches escape velocity (in which case it is no longer a problem) it will periodically return to the altitude of the explosion or (more likely) lower, just due to how orbital mechanics works.
To be fair, SpaceX offered starlink for free. Then later the man-child twitted some bullshit about ceding large parts of Ukraine to their invader as some weird attempt to mollify the aggressor.
When Ukraine rightly told him to fuck off he decided to pull the plug. It was only later that he made up the thing about cost.
The way it played out could cause some cautious people to look for some assurances. Asking how you can trust someone who has proven himself to be mercurial, thin -skinned and prone to snap decisions, prone to conspiracy thinking, and with a proven track record of retaliation against anyone who questions his decisions up to and including baseless accusations of heinous crimes…
Because last time when we were ceding territories of other countries to appease a dictator, it was year 1938 and we were ceding parts of Czechoslovakia. Guess what? It did not worked and WW2 started a year later.
Really, is it so hard to learn from a recent history?
Who is 'we' here. The US didn't do anything in 1938. And the Brits and have done so lots of times since then. And lets not pretend the US doesn't have a long history of ceding issues to dictators if convenient. Handing over Afghanistan to the Taliban is apparently totally ok, but not defending Crimea is like the Münich conference.
Looking at isolated cases in history you can come up with lots of example for anything and everything. Its a typical politician move to pick the singular events and then act as if it is a universal lesson for every situation.
One can make the argument, but just say 'Münich' as if it settles everything is dumb.
So what will happen with same appeasement in Ukraine? After few years of "peace" war will continue again. So you lost with appeasement and you got war again.
Oh yeah we already did it, 2014 was supposed to be "enough", but 8 years later, here we are, dictator wants more. Rinse and repeat
>This issue has been such a mess, demonstrating how low reporting standards have dropped. For starters, the only thing Ukraine has been prevented from using Starlink for is as a guidance system for drones.
not exactly. there were a lot of reports that starlink functionality constrained to Ukrainian territory beyond "conflict line". When during September/October counterattacks Ukrainian forces advanced, starlinks didn't function and it created operational problems.
>On top of that, SpaceX asked for the government to fund Ukraine's use of Starlink, and if they were so worried about its importance, they should've just done that.
> not exactly. there were a lot of reports that starlink functionality constrained to Ukrainian territory beyond "conflict line". When during September/October counterattacks Ukrainian forces advanced, starlinks didn't function and it created operational problems.
Reports that Ukrainian leadership themselves denied.
Starlink regularly has regional service outages (look on the starlink subreddit and just search "outage"), even in areas where there isn't an opponent trying to actively jam it as there is in Ukraine. Occam's razor and all that.
Yeah, the lesson for SpaceX certainly has been that no good deed goes unpunished.
Instead of assuming that everyone will act in good faith, they'll just have to assume everyone's like you and turn down future public requests for emergency aid until they have everything down on paper. Of course then you'll be complaining about the rich/big companies not helping anyone.
> Instead of assuming that everyone will act in good faith
Musk never acts in good faith. Just one example is his desperate and failed six month attempt to back out of the Twitter deal that he himself proposed and agreed to:
He's excited to bring the future to people and often overestimates the capabilities of existing technology and how fast things can be improved. Again, in good faith, and has often derided his past self on how overly optimistic his past predictions are.
> In reality Teslas can't even park themselves
A ten second youtube search shows several recent videos showing it working just fine.
> In reality the older Teslas now won't get Hardware 4
The second link does not disagree with the first. Hardware 4 is not necessary for FSD, and has been officially stated as such in multiple places, including in the article you yourself provided. There was never any promises that hardware 3 would be capable of being retrofitted to hardware 4. In the same investor's call hardware 5 was talked about as well.
Is he? Is that why he spends his time falsely claiming cave divers are paedophiles and why he publicly mocks people with muscular dystrophy?
> and often overestimates the capabilities of existing technology
So what you're saying is he bullshits and he lies.
You do appear to be fully bought in to the Musk Mythology. At this point the only person who can help you see the more simple (and uglier) Musk Reality is you. It will be a hard road for you.
If you're not going to try to engage in reasonable discussions I'm not going to continue to respond.
The first event is ancient history and started with a public personal attack by said individual against Musk, and the second Musk apologized for as he was misinformed by others.
> So what you're saying is he bullshits and he lies.
No that's not what I said. Please follow hacker news guidelines.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Biden administration locked Elon out of the big contracts that Trump was giving out (global missile defense). He has since aligned himself very publicly with Republicans.
> the only thing Ukraine has been prevented from using Starlink for is as a guidance system for drones
I can't tell if this is supposed to be humorous or not.
Ukraine is involved in an existential fight for its right to be a nation and a people. It's war. A war that Ukraine did not seek out. A war brought to Ukraine by Russia. A war that has cost many Ukrainian lives and will cost still more.
Ukraine is not going to care about terms of service set by a petulant man-child who has advocated for submission to Russia. Especially not when volunteers and soldiers on the ground are paying for Starlink access themselves:
Now say the same but for why the world insists that none of its aid be used to attack into internationally recognized Russian territory and why Ukraine isn't allowed to do so with HIMARS etc.
I know this place loses its sanity whenever the bad rocket man is mentioned, but all they did is put themselves in line with the US's stated policy about the target of their aid to Ukraine.
What? My position is that SpaceX are justified in the limits they've set. That hasn't changed at all.
I'm simply pointing out the most likely reasoning behind setting those limits in the first place, and clarifying that what you said about how Ukraine isn't going to care about those limits because they're in an existential war also is in conflict with what they're dealing with regarding all the other aid.
> My position is that SpaceX are justified in the limits they've set.
They are not.
> That hasn't changed at all.
Of course it has. You indulged in whataboutism. You suddenly wanted Starlink to be on the same terms as other aid. That is inconsistent with your original claim.
At this point you're not keeping up with your own posts.
> Ukraine is not going to care about terms of service
Well in that case they won't provided that service. That's how it usually goes. If it creates a significant legal liability to the service provider (which is the reason for many ToS clauses), the service provider would be absolutely stupid to not shut things down in such cases.
> On top of that, SpaceX asked for the government to fund Ukraine's use of Starlink, and if they were so worried about its importance, they should've just done that.
Exactly. SpaceX was doing a favor, at first, but the service still costs money. For the service to continue, it clearly needs funding. Just about any company will have a limit to how much they can or will provide for free. The answer to the problem, is mainly money. Provide contracts and money for the SpaceX service, and that will likely resolve the issue.
Starlink was offered for free and then elon started receiving payments from eastern people in trench coats and suddenly he starts talking about negotiating peace. Then he suddenly turns off starlink to try and sway a major battle.
How can you trust someone like that not to betray you?
That too had been a lie by CNN. They issued a correction two weeks after reporting that, which explained that the "outage" was a third party unrelated to SpaceX deciding not to pay for the terminals it had provided of its own volition and Ukraine had been fully aware, swapping those out with other terminals beforehand.
And there's been no evidence of him receiving payments from anyone for political purposes. And I mean just think about it, if someone tried they'd have to pay him a whole lot to not just run with it to twitter and mock the people who tried to bribe him.
Wait a moment. SpaceX willingly paid for a batch of those devices when it served its own purposes. It was good advertising for them to provide those. They weren't even defense contractors at that time. Also: DoD just like some other EU countries bought additional devices and services. Everything was great until....the mad owner of the company started embarrassing himself with his side business and comments and suddenly financing became a problem.
Musk has become a problem and seems to have lost his mind, so I can very much understand if someone who wants to do business with him, would take all precautions possible.
> Did they specifically pay for Starlink dishes and access designed to be used on planes and drones? If not, I don't see what the issue is.
Why don't you? He lied when he said he's paying himself when it was the DoD. Later other countries joined the DoD in buying his products. Despite that he started to limit the service and spreading Russian propaganda. How don't you see an issue there??
> And somehow the 2 major company he is running have not lost their minds and a both growing and still successful.
Even your article acknowledges that SpaceX "donated a significant sum to Ukraine’s cause." They are just not footing 100% of the bill. It is not clear why they would be expected to do so. According to Musk, "25,300 terminals were sent to Ukraine, but, at present, only 10,630 are paying for service."[1]
On top of that, SpaceX asked for the government to fund Ukraine's use of Starlink, and if they were so worried about its importance, they should've just done that. It seems more than a little absurd to argue that SpaceX - unlike literally every other defense contractor - should both be footing most of the bill for the service and should have no say over how the service is then used.
Then, adding on to that, there's a huge difference in terms of regulations between a US company essentially supplying long range guidance systems (and ongoing services which enable those systems) of its own volition to a foreign nation involved in a war and a US company contracted by the DoD to supply the same. This should especially considered in the context that the US has been extremely careful in limiting the range of the weapons it has supplied to Ukraine (with exactly the same reasoning SpaceX has used of not wanting to enable an escalation in the conflict), while Starlink is able to handle guidance well beyond that.
This idiotic senator might as well be asking how they can trust ULA to keep launching satellites for the DoD when they won't unconditionally launch Rwanda's 300k satellite megaconstellation for free.