from the who-knew-China-has-a-military-industrial-complex-too? dept.
Researchers working on plan to neutralise reach of network developed by billionaire Elon Musk:
Researchers say China plans to build a huge satellite network in near-Earth orbit to provide internet services to users around the world — and to stifle Elon Musk's Starlink.
The project has the code name "GW", according to a team led by associate professor Xu Can with the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Space Engineering University in Beijing. But what these letters stand for is unclear.
The GW constellation will include 12,992 satellites owned by the newly established China Satellite Network Group Co, Xu and his colleagues said in a paper about anti-Starlink measures published in the Chinese journal Command Control and Simulation on Feb 15.
[...] Xu's team said the GW satellite constellation was likely to be deployed quickly, "before the completion of Starlink". This would "ensure that our country has a place in low orbit and prevent the Starlink constellation from excessively pre-empting low-orbit resources", they wrote.
The Chinese satellites could also be placed in "orbits where the Starlink constellation has not yet reached", the researchers said, adding that they would "gain opportunities and advantages at other orbital altitudes, and even suppress Starlink".
The Chinese satellites could be equipped with an anti-Starlink payload to carry out various missions, such as conducting "close-range, long-term surveillance of Starlink satellites", they said.
A recent study by the China National Space Administration called for cooperation and said competing communication satellite networks could harm each other.
[...] "The Starlink satellites may use their orbital manoeuvrability to actively hit and destroy nearby targets in space," the researchers said.
[...] Xu's team said the Chinese government could also cooperate with other governments to form an anti-Starlink coalition and "demand that SpaceX publish the precise orbiting data of Starlink satellites".
They added that new weapons, including lasers and high-power microwaves, would be developed and used to destroy Starlink satellites that pass over China or other sensitive regions.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Snotnose on Wednesday March 01, @11:38PM (6 children)
Between Musk, Bezos, and China, the amateur astronomer is pretty much screwed unless they like light trails in their pictures.
Wonder how well the pros will be able to filter out, what, about 100k satellites zooming around?
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Wednesday March 01, @11:54PM (1 child)
I think that won't see afar
A sat'llite lovely as a star.
Perhaps, unless the sat'lites fall,
I’ll never see a star at all.
—(applogies to Ogden Nash
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday March 02, @10:01PM
Here is one from Chat GPT3. I asked for it to be in the style of Ogden Nash. You'll have to judge how well it did.
Here is the first version I got before I qualified my request to be in a particular style.
It's good to be cynical.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday March 01, @11:55PM
Or they take basic precautions like a series of 30 second shots, for example. There's already software for stacking multiple photos (it can do hundreds) of the same thing to get a better picture.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02, @01:20AM (2 children)
They will put their telescopes into orbit above the Starlink satellites. Starship will make that so cost-effective that they'll wonder how they ever managed with telescopes that had to look through an ocean of dirty atmosphere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @01:37AM (1 child)
You think so, smart guy? Even Hubble has this problem [nature.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @03:26AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02, @01:23AM (6 children)
My guess--SpaceX has a huge lead in low cost to orbit. Their boosters and rocket engines are made on production lines. Unless the Chinese launch company can work out (or steal) how to make boosters reusable, engines that are easily replaced, etc, etc, competing on this massive scale is going to be *really* expensive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday March 02, @02:04AM (4 children)
Unless there's something different about this planned 12,992 satellite constellation, like extremely small satellites, it seems highly unlikely that it will be deployed before Starlink.
Starlink deployment is apparently over a year ahead of schedule [wikipedia.org], and Starship isn't even in play yet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday March 02, @08:11AM (3 children)
Well, China has nukes. Maybe they are planning on launching them all at once on one Orion.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02, @09:15AM (2 children)
chinese thought on nuclear weapons is that they will never be needed
paper tigers zhǐlǎohǔ
they do not ever expect to use them
just having them and lots of them is enough
this highlights the difference between the US and china in that the US will bring the war to others once it is committed
so will russia
perhaps one day china will understand that this is not a game
their theft of seafood from oceans belonging to others will be calculated
their threats of war and economic sanctions will be tallied
the cost of covid will be determined
and the world will present a bill that must be paid
just as germany and japan paid the price a century ago
(Score: 3, Interesting) by quietus on Thursday March 02, @11:11AM (1 child)
Chinese thought on war is that the more victims there are, the more glorious a war is. (Sun Tzu ... that's millennia ago, and when the Middle Kingdom was unopposed: now the evil, bloodthirsty, Westerners have been humiliating us for over two centuries, permanently. We will have our revenge.)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @03:41AM
I doubt China will deviate from their no first use policy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use#China [wikipedia.org] ). If they tried to nuke the USA or a US ally first they'd have a lot more to lose. It'll be easier for the US to kill hundreds of millions by nuking the very highly populated Chinese cities.
Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population [wikipedia.org]
with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population [wikipedia.org]
Other than NYC and maybe LA the other cities are relatively less populated (relative to total country population).
The USA has more area and less people, and they have nuclear submarines with nukes.
They also have more influence over the Western media so winnie the pooh and friends might have a harder time looking for a new country to stay in after China has been nuked.
Heck, given the UKUSA could convince so many to believe that Russia destroyed their own pipeline they might be able to nuke China first and then convince lots of people that China nuked first.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday March 03, @05:47AM
Russians still charge less than SpaceX by any measure. They probably can't scale currently, but Chinese definitely can. For starters, they have an order of magnitude more space *companies*.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Funny) by oumuamua on Thursday March 02, @01:25AM (4 children)
This is no doubt in response to Musk's tweet in support of the lab theory origin of Covid.
(Score: 2, Informative) by oumuamua on Thursday March 02, @01:28AM
I tried to find that original SCMP article but got distracted by this: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3211975/deadly-balancing-act-region-us-hell-bent-china-war [scmp.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02, @08:14AM (2 children)
My theory is that China was trying to engineer a virus to bump off all their excess old people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02, @10:04AM
more things we do not say in public where the great and mighty pooh bear and his jack booted thugs can hear
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @03:29AM
In contrast what the USA, UK, Italy and France did seemed better at killing off the old people.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by quietus on Thursday March 02, @11:22AM
A requirement for the war with Japan (not Taiwan, nor the rest of SE Asia -- that will fall as a ripe apple into their lap, once Japan is nuked flat) to start, is to blind the military eyes of the opponent. Hence StarLinks capability to quickly re-establish the West's military satellite network must be destroyed first.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Thursday March 02, @11:44AM (2 children)
and it won't be with Russia.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Friday March 03, @06:04AM (1 child)
Yep. Chinese economy is bigger already. Chinese military would obviously have to catch before China takes world's leadership. How much time left? Perhaps 5 years, may be 10, definitely not more than 15. Anybody thinks the US will just let it go?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05, @08:56AM
The US will win in the end. The war will be costly, destruction devastating, fallout terrible. China will learn the same lesson for Japan in that when other countries see you as a threat to their existence you will be flattened.