Elon Musk Just REVEALED An Upgraded Starlink That Will Shock China!
Saturday, June 25, 2022 | Chimniii Desk
For years now, through his space company SpaceX, Elon Musk has been developing technology to provide internet satellite connectivity.
This technology, better known as Starlink, is already active as it has launched quite a lot of satellites into orbit. Right now, there are about 2200 Starlink satellites in orbit, which are providing internet access to about 32 countries.
However, this is set to increase with time, as SpaceX has just developed a next-generation satellite. This upgraded Starlink satellite is so sophisticated that it has even left China shocked, and they now feel threatened.
But what does this new and upgraded satellite have to offer?
Today, we are going to see what this next-generation Starlink satellite has to offer and why it has left China shocked. This is a true game-changer. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, recently revealed the first technical details about the company’s Starlink “Gen 2” satellite design.
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He went on to confirm that it would be much better than the current generation of satellites in almost every aspect. Musk revealed all this information during an onsite interview and Starbase tour with YouTuber Tim Dodd from The Everyday Astronaut.
During this interview, Musk, who seemed to be completely unprovoked, went on to say that SpaceX had already built one functional Starlink Gen2/V2.0 satellite prototype. However, this new satellite is currently stored in the South Texas Starship factory.
In addition to that, Musk also gave first-hand information about the specifications of the next-generation satellite. He stated that each Starlink V2.0 satellite has a weight of about 1.25 tons and measures about 7 meters long.
Musk even said that it would be almost an order of magnitude more capable than the “Starlink 1” satellites that they are definitely better than. It has been about ten months since SpaceX revealed their updated plans for a next-generation Starlink satellite, of which they plan to launch about 30,000 of them into orbit.
With the details given by Elon Musk, a few key points of speculation have been confirmed about the future of Starlink. SpaceX might try to optimize the new Starlink V2.0 satellite design to ensure that they make the most of Starship’s launch performance.
This is the same thing that they did in August 2021 with the Falcon 9. According to an updated Starlink Gen2 filing, SpaceX revealed that they would design a version of the constellation such that the starship could launch with an entire orbital plane aboard.
This means that they would successfully launch one ring of satellites that are spaced evenly around the Earth. In this new constellation variant, only about 500 of the 30,000 spacecraft would be stationed in planes of 11 or 120 satellites.
This could simply mean that SpaceX plans to launch about 1110 or 120 satellites with one starship launch. Taking into consideration Musk’s latest optimistic starship performance, which estimated the launch of 150 tons to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), we can assume that one of the Starlink V2.0 satellites would weigh about 1250 kilograms.
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Now that we know that each Starlink V2.0 satellite will be about 1250 kilograms, how does it compare with the previous versions? The Starlink V1.0 and V1.5 satellites are about 260 and 310 kilograms, respectively.
This simply means that the Starlink V2.0 satellites are about four times heavier than the V1.5 and about five times heavier than the V1.0. Musk also revealed that the V2.0 satellites would be “almost an order of magnitude more capable than Starlink 1.
He did not refer to the capability as bandwidth or throughput, which is the traditional method of describing the total performance of a communication satellite. The Starlink V1.0 is said to have a total bandwidth of about 18 gigabits per second.
However, it is unclear whether Starlink V1.5, which was a significant upgrade, also added some more bandwidth. In addition, it is also unclear whether Musk was referring to the latest Starlink V1.x iteration.
However, even if he was comparing the V2.0 with the earliest V1.0 satellites, it can be estimated that each Starlink V2.0 will add up to around 140-160 Gbps of the 30,000 satellite constellation. Even with all that, numbers are not that necessary in emphasizing the importance of the details that Musk provided.
If what Musk said is true, then the Starlink V2.0 could pack twice as much usable bandwidth into a given unit of satellite mass as compared to the V1.x.
Given that Starship could also offer about ten times as much performance to LEO as the Falcon 9, this would mean that a single Starship launch could, in theory, expand the total network capacity by about 20 times more than the Falcon 9 does.
If the FCC were to approve SpaceX’s license request, SpaceX would be required to launch half of the constellation within six years. This means that they would have to carry out a total of 130 starship launches, meaning about 22 starships launched every year.
For Starship to achieve carrying out all those launches, SpaceX would have to move up the launches of the largest rocket ever built at a fast pace. Furthermore, they would need to ensure that they have more successes than failures or setbacks.
However, as much as SpaceX is planning to launch a constellation of 30,000 Starlink V2.0 satellites, which will be spaced evenly around the globe, Chinese military researchers are looking for a way to ensure that they can destroy the Starlink network at any given time.
But why would they do this? Could they be afraid of Starlink’s internet connectivity? According to the Chinese military researchers, they need to find a way in which they can disable or destroy SpaceX’s Starlink satellites if they were ever to threaten the national security of the country.
They are planning on how they are going to develop anti-satellite capabilities, which include a surveillance system that has unprecedented scale and sensitivity, and can track and monitor every Starlink satellite.
A paper published last month showed that the study was led by Ren Yuanzhen, a researcher with the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications, under the PLA’s Strategic Support Force. Some of the coauthors of this paper were several senior scientists in China’s defense industry.
The paper, which was published in the domestic, peer-reviewed journal Modern Defense Technology, said, “A combination of soft and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functions and destroy the constellation’s operating system.
Starlink has become the most ambitious satellite-communication project ever. It provides broadband internet services for commercial and military uses all over the world. Because of this, Elon Musk has become very popular among the Chinese.
They refer to him as a role model for innovation. However, Musk and his companies received a lot of criticism when two of the Starlink satellites came dangerously close to the Chinese space station last year.
According to Ren, US military drones and stealth fighter jets could increase the speed at which they transmit their data by 100 times with the help of a Starlink connection. Not so long ago, SpaceX signed a contract with the US Defense Department to help them develop new technology that will be based on the Starlink platform.
This includes some sensitive instruments that will be able to detect and track hypersonic weapons that are traveling at five times the speed of sound and even faster in the earth’s atmosphere. The Starlink satellites are also equipped with ion thrusters.
This will give them the capability to change orbits rapidly for an offensive move against high-value targets in space. This was reported by Ren’s team. With more than 2,300 satellites in orbit and more yet to be added, Starlink is generally believed to be indestructible, especially because the system can still function properly even if some of the satellites are lost or disconnected.
Because of the unprecedented scale, complexity, and flexibility of Starlink, the Chinese military is forced to develop a new anti-satellite capability. For example, it could be possible for some of the satellites to carry military payloads to be launched amid a batch of Starlink’s commercial craft.
However, this was just a suggestion. Because of this, the Chinese military had to upgrade its existing space surveillance systems to get super sharp images of these small satellites for experts to identify unusual features. At the moment, China has already developed a lot of ground-based laser-imaging devices that can take photos of orbiting satellites at millimeter resolution.
In addition to optical and radar imaging, the country would also need to be able to intercept signals from each Starlink satellite to detect any potential threat. China definitely feels threatened by the Starlink constellation because it is greatly advancing.
Their main concern is their national security, and they are doing anything to protect themselves. But do they really feel threatened?
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