/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15090375
Well, that's unknown. But it would seem so. Based on known appearances, the launch/deployment system may be a bit like how tracers are fired from vulcans or autocannons; where every 3rd or 5th round is a tracer?

So if SpaceX is launching say 54 Gen2 satellites, then every 5th satellite is actually a Starshield payload, so each deployment gets 10 satellites into a network that shares the same common path as the rest of the Starlink platform and laserlink system. Then, to any adversary, they'd have to find each shell and then from each shell track each individual satellite and from each satellite, then conduct sigint to figure out which satellite is and isn't part of Starshield. This becomes exponentially complicated the more Starlink satellites get launched into variable shells by SpaceX.

Its security through obfuscation at its finest. It's no surprise that China and Russia are both seething. They'd have to ASAT civilian targets to damage natsec ones embedded within, and shooting down civilian sats deliberately is a more egregious violation/prelude to an act of war than specifically targeting clandestine hardware in part due to the indiscriminate nature of destructive application and impacting far more entities in LEO ranging from commercial, ISS, Chinese Station, and other government's own natsec hardware.

SpaceX's genius here is really on display. Make it so that if you do strike, you basically create a high velocity debris field that's going to damage EVERYONE in the space, especially those removed from the conflict, which converts them from allied to neutral and from neutral to hostile.