From: tl@none.invalid   
      
   JF Mezei   wrote:   
   >Based on what I saw, there are 2 base stations that are near enough to   
   >serve most (but not all) locations in Ukraine (Poland and Turkey IIRC).   
      
   starlink.sx says there's also a Lithuanian base station. And all three   
   are NATO countries so he can't do anything about either.   
      
   Some playing around with starlink.sx suggests that all of Ukraine is   
   coverable by Starlink using those three base stations, even the areas   
   that has been under Russian puppet control for years which are much   
   further east than most of Ukraine which should be the hardest spot to   
   cover based on where the current base stations are.   
      
   They could in theory run out of "beam spots" which wouldn't show up on   
   starlink.sx but that should be a prioritization question and Musk   
   likely has to prioritize Ukraine so it seems unlikely to be an issue.   
      
      
   >Elon Musk tweeted that someone was jamming then over Ukraine and that a   
   >software patch would fix it.   
   >   
   >If someone is jamming the frequencies allocated to SpaceX with loud   
   >elevator music, how can a software fix pass though the jamming? Or is   
   >that more a question of filtering out the jamming singnal and only   
   >keeping the frequency modulation used for the satellites?   
      
   There's many things that they could do that could help, it's   
   impossible to know what they're doing. But the jamming would need to   
   be pointed fairly precisely at the satellite which gives some hints of   
   a few of the things that might be possible.   
      
   Try to improve signal processing to reduce the impact is an obvious   
   counter move that I would be shocked if they wasn't working on this -   
   and this is enough to warrant what Musk said so far (no, he didn't   
   promise to "fix" it).   
      
   AFAIK the satellite antennas are also active?, in which case they   
   might be able to use that to localize where the jamming comes from and   
   then also use that to reduce sensitivity from the general area. Not   
   magic and not sure how MUCH they can beamshape things but any dB of   
   attenuation helps.   
      
   Also, in most cases there would a number of possible satellites that   
   SpaceX could have choosen to cover an area but likely only one or a   
   few would be used. So... what if they decided to swap around which one   
   are used in realtime, as long as the ground station knows the pattern   
   you've just made jamming significantly harder, especially if you can   
   also reduce jamming sensitivity using one of the methods above.   
      
   And that's just the ones obvious to someone without specialized   
   knowledge.   
      
   If SpaceX had a few more shells of satellites up this would get a lot   
   more complicated to jam too, but that takes time.   
      
   And as someone mentioned, the US military certainly wouldn't say no to   
   a more hardened Starlink so it has long-term benefits for Musk.   
   Basically they're getting field testing for free :-) And PR.   
      
      
   >Secondly, and I ask this theoretically.   
   >   
   >Most of the satelites are ~350km altitude.  Branson and Bezos's joy   
   >rides go to 100km.  Say Russia had a joy ride that could reach 350km and   
   >then fall back down. (0 orbital speed, only vertical speed).   
   >   
   >Knowing the TLEs of the satellites, would it be feasable to launch   
   >something straight up such that it get to satellite's position and   
   >altitude just as the satellite passes there, causing satellite going   
   >orbital speed to hit an object going at 0kmh ?   
      
   Russia do have real "direct ascent" ASATs with actual sane flight   
   profiles , their last intercept test was in November 2021 and created   
   a debris field both above and below that satellites orbit of 500km. It   
   was discussed a lot in the news given that some of this debris was in   
   orbits that could intersect with the ISS at 408 km.   
      
   However, it's very unlikely that Russia have (or can build in   
   reasonable time) anywhere near the numbers necessary to degrade   
   Starlink.   
      
   And.. There's no way they could hide what they did and deliberately   
   hitting an US satellite, even a civilian one like Starlink, would   
   effectively be an act of war against the US.   
      
   Congratulation, you may have found a (completely unrealistic) way to   
   make *China* decide that Putin has to go away, which would be very bad   
   for Putin given it's pretty much his last bastion of support.   
      
   OTOH there's also no way Putin wouldn't know the likely consequences   
   too.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)