Posted on 10/27/2022 11:33:09 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Russia is considering shooting down commercial Western satellites as payback for aiding Ukraine in the war, which could put the US and Kyiv’s other allies on a collision course with Moscow.
Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy head of Russia’s delegation at a UN arms control panel, said the use of Western satellites to help Ukrainian forces on the battlefield was “an extremely dangerous trend.”
“Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” he told the UN First Committee, adding that the West’s use of such satellites to support Ukraine was “provocative.”
“We are talking about the involvement of components of civilian space infrastructure, including commercial, by the United States and its allies in armed conflicts,” said Vorontsov.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
this is why we have a space force, thanks to president trump.
does putin think we wonn’t do that?
Shooting satellites creates a bigger problem than it might seem. Creating a junk pile in low earth orbit could cause a lot of problems if that stuff starts colliding with other stuff.
That would be seen as quite an act of national aggression against everyone who has stuff in space.
Russia knows this. They are not stupid.
Depends on what the real power behind the throne tells Sleepy what to do.
With what, Comrade Putin?
The first space war.
I always said, the first thing to go in the case of a world war is every single satellite.
Paging Mr. Musk..Mr. Musk? Better check on your starlink satellites
this is why we have a space force, thanks to president trump.
—
Probably will be cancelled in the next 2 years like the sub-launched nuclear cruise missiles and just about everything DJT did.
An act of war.
This is exactly why Musk has made the Starlink satellites tiny, cheap, easily replaceable and then launched hundreds of them.
Not sure how the GPS satellites are going to fare, though.
Not a problem, Trump can reinstate everything he did once he gets back what they stole.
he means destroy, and causing a large debris field isn’t how to win friends and influence people...
The GPS satellites are almost 11,000 miles up. Not going to be easy to take out.
And there are over 3,500 Starlink satellites in orbit only about 350 miles up. A lot lower, but a lot harder to take out enough to make a difference.
Not that hard (relatively) either and the Russians have that PL19 ASAT weapon that could possibly be easily adapted for an extended range mission. The other possibility is directed energy weapons that could be used to mission kill GPS satellites.
The PL19 has only been tested to about 300 miles, a big difference between that and 11,000+. Not going to be easy (or even possible) to increase the range by 40X.
And if they had directed energy weapons that would reach that high, you'd think they'd also be using them to take out all the Ukrainian drones and planes flying around.
It’s possible they could put the PL19 on top of one of their larger rockets - the PL-19 carrier missile wasn’t exactly their largest or longest ranged.
The type of directed energy weapon you’d need for that tends to live in large compounds and weapons complexes and isn’t generally mobile, not least due to the power requirements. Pretty sure any Ukranian theater vehicles are going to be over the horizon from any surface facility like that.
Vorontsov did not call out any companies by name, but Elon Musk’s SpaceX has spent more than $80 million to support Ukrainian forces through Starlink, a network of thousands of satellites that connect with user terminals on the ground.
SpaceX had asked the Pentagon for funding, but Musk tweeted this week that he assured Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov that SpaceX “would not turn off Starlink even if [the Department of Defense] refused to provide funding.”
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