Elon Musk’s Starlink scares China. This is why they will try to take him out
Elon Musk's Starlink is making the Chinese Communist Party very nervous because it adds an unexpected variable to a game, the conquest of space, which China thought it had already won, at least according to an expert in the field. "It is important to understand that the SpaceX company by Elon Musk is the only thing that keeps the United States in the space race with China, ”said Brandon Weichert, space expert and author of“ Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower , ” told The Epoch Times in an interview released at the end of May .
According to the expert, Starlink, now "probably a vital component of the war process", is making America's rivals "nervous", but Elon Musk is under a double "attack" from the White House and the military establishment.
Starlink, a satellite Internet constellation operated by Musk's SpaceX company, currently consists of more than 2,400 satellites orbiting the Earth at an altitude more than 60 times lower than the satellites that today carry most of the Internet in the world. .
According to the space expert, the reason why US adversaries are troubled by Starlink's presentation is that the satellite system is resistant to the large-scale attacks that US adversaries are currently capable of and thus makes it much more difficult. To "destroy" the American space infrastructure compared to the past.
" Starlink is a prime example of a private sector profit motive that provides a key example of how vital but vulnerable military satellite constellations can be protected, " Weichert said.
“ The strength of Starlink is its redundancy. Last summer, a solar flare knocked out about 20, or possibly 40, Starlink satellites, and Musk didn't flinch in a day. Those systems have been replaced because they are small and cheap , ”he noted.
As Weichert explains in his book, in the past Russia and China were able to prevent the US military from accessing communications networks by attacking American satellites, for example with electromagnetic pulse attacks.
Now Starlink is threatening US adversaries because the substitutability of the satellite network prevents them from maintaining an advantage over the US in space warfare.
" Russia and China are both threatened by this capability, because they know the Americans could use it as an advantage ," he added. " Which is why these two countries are in a state of agitation right now and are desperately trying to find countermeasures to maintain what they believe to be their advantage, with counter-space capabilities, the ability to deny Americans the use of space in case of conflict “.
According to the expert, a sign indicating that the CCP is threatened by Starlink was when the CCP complained to the United Nations that the Chinese space station "Tiangong" had to maneuver to avoid collision with the Starlink satellites in two distinct cases.
“ China came out screaming that one of Elon Musk's Starlink satellites had almost collided with their new modular space station, which of course was an exaggeration… but they made us realize that they are very afraid of this new system. of communication , ”Weichert said.
The United States refuted the CCP's claims in a verbal reply. SpaceX has released a statement acknowledging the encounter and claims to monitor the flight path of its satellites to maintain a safe distance from Tiangong.
The expert added that Starlink has cyber-defense capabilities that look impressive even to the Pentagon's defense specialists.
" Pentagon e-warfare specialist assisted in real time SpaceX's Starlink operators defending the Starlink satellite's onboard system from Russian cyberattacks, incessant cyberattacks, " Weichert said, quoting Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare. of the Pentagon, which told Breaking Defense that SpaceX's capabilities make their mouth water.
Therefore, if the Chinese military attempted a cyber attack on Starlink's on-board operating systems, according to Weichert, "it would face a rude awakening."
Musk has created a redundant, secure and low-cost system, which makes the control of space by the US much safer and above all resistant to cyber or physical attacks from China and Russia. But he did it privately, without being an official US Defense or NASA supplier, outside the control of the federal state. His model is extraordinarily resistant from a technological point of view, so they will try to destroy it from a personal point of view. You will see some good ones with both Twitter and Tesla, also because, let's face it, the US government is not impervious to Beijing's interests. At the same time Musk has revealed a very dangerous secret: the big state programs are fragile, only a plurality of systems can guarantee safety in space.
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Elon Musk's Starlink article scares China. That's why they will try to do it out comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/starlink-di-elon-musk-fa-paura-alla-cina-ecco-perche-cercheranno-di-farlo-fuori/ on Sun, 12 Jun 2022 10:52:16 +0000.