Chinese lasers targeting Starlink satellites

The threat of a regime

According to a newly conducted study by People's Liberation Army scientists, Chinese submarines equipped with lasers could potentially disable Starlink SpaceX satellites if China's security were threatened.

Imagine a submarine with a megawatt-class solid-state laser weapon installed in the midsection capable of remaining submerged while raising a retractable optoelectronic mast to fire at satellites before submerging again.

Simulations that can be carried out.

This impressive vision was detailed in the South China Morning Post, submarine-borne laser weapons have the potential to significantly increase defense capabilities, as well as expand the scope of missions that can be carried out.

The study details the progress of laser weapons research, outlining the development and application of such weapons in the United States and suggests the necessary requirements for their installation on submarines, the simulation managers suggest that a type of attack Submarine with laser could be mass produced and deployed in several oceans to combat military threats to China.

This concept was detailed in a peer-reviewed paper recently published by WANG Dan and his design team. The main challenge in anti-satellite missions is not only targeting the satellite, but also concealing the attack, although surface-to-air missiles are currently the main method. For combat satellites, this approach has significant problems especially in relation to stealth.

Missile launches produce long columns of smoke revealing the position of the attacker making them vulnerable to enemy fire. Conducting such attacks from the surface is therefore considered very risky, scientists noted. Wang's team explained that satellites such as those in the network Starlink are numerous, densely compact and small, which makes the network highly resilient, even if many satellites are destroyed there are redundancies to replace them which makes the use of missiles ineffective.

The document provides step-by-step instructions to target Starlink-like satellites from the sea, submarines equipped with laser weapons would be deployed in the designated operational area, waiting for the satellites to enter their attack range based on previously recorded flyby schedules, when The satellite enters the range the laser weapon is raised and with additional support from other forces for the orientation of the position of the satellite the attack is carried out, after the mission the submarine can submerge and wait for the next one or return to port.