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Science & Technology
China and Low Earth Orbit Sats
2025-04-16
[Jamestown.org] PLA Perceptions of and Reactions to U.S. Military Activities in Low Earth Orbit

Executive Summary:

  • Space industry experts within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have observed and drawn lessons from the United States’s use of space as a warfighting domain since the 1990s. These experts tend to characterize the deployment of proliferated low earth orbit (pLEO) constellations, such as the privately-owned Starlink constellation, as an application of the Department of Defense’s resilient space concept.

  • The PLA views Starlink as challenging its core operational concept of multi-domain precision warfare due to the decentralized nature of pLEO constellations. It attributes many unconfirmed, hyperbolic capabilities to Starlink, which contributes to the belief that Starlink is creating a strategic imbalance between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in space.

  • The PRC has begun developing its own comparable megaconstellation, Project SatNet, which PLA analysts see as enabling similar capabilities to Starlink and which they also envision as countering Starlink.

Posted by:Vortigern Speaking for Boskone4685

#3  


Maybe should be thinking also of an EMP rapid strike scenario?

Calculator to look at the EMP effects base weapon size and altitude

A mere 100kt at 100 miles covers a 1,400+ mile circle, with 75% of all unshielded electronics fried instantly.

Kiss the US/Canadian Power Grid, comm lines, Sta phones and the Internet goodbye.
Posted by: NN2N1   2025-04-16 11:57  

#2  Consider Starlink's 7000 sats as a survivable re-entry orbital mass with a secondary communication function.

Orbit, orbital lifetime, and reentry survivability estimation for orbiting objects
Posted by: Skidmark   2025-04-16 09:47  

#1  A ballon is sort of a super low orbit sat.
Posted by: Super Hose   2025-04-16 08:25  

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