Original Yuanwang Think Tank Foresees the Future Strategic Frontier Technology2023-08-30 22:20 Published in Beijing
Future development and enlightenment of "Starlink" militarized application
This article is excerpted from "Yuanwang Think Tank's 2023 Strategic Research Report on Topic 3: High-tech and High-end War Research (2023)" Distant report
After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Musk's Starlink satellite was launched in Ukraine with a high profile, and quickly intervened in military operations, providing redundant network support for the Ukrainian government, defense and critical infrastructure departments to connect to the Internet. This also became the first appearance of the "Starlink" satellite in the military field. In this Russian-Ukrainian war, the United States conducted a comprehensive test of the militarization capability of the "Starlink" satellite and found that it has great war potential. Next, the US military plans to promote the continuous upgrading of the "Starlink" satellite, gradually embedded in the US military's communication network, provide communication support for the US military's global operations, and make it a military satellite with a civilian foundation. The "Starlink" satellite has developed to today, and has become a very important communication core in just a few years, which can be called a pinnacle of US dual-use technology.
1. Overview of the "Starlink" system
In 2015, SpaceX established a subordinate "Starlink" department, which is responsible for the research and development and operation of the "Starlink" low-earth orbit broadband Internet communication satellite. The Starlink satellite is a tiny satellite with a mass of only 260 kilograms, and uses the "one arrow and multiple satellites" method to use the "Falcon 9" rocket with a carrying capacity of 23 tons to push 60 stars into orbit at a time. At present, SpaceX is simultaneously working on the construction of high-speed communication lines between ground stations and satellites, greatly improving the efficiency of system network construction.
Starlink satellites adopt modular design and have achieved large-scale mass manufacturing, with a current production capacity of 120 satellites per month and a single satellite development cost of less than $1 million. Starlink satellites were launched on Space Exploration's recoverable rockets, costing about $500,000 per satellite. With the increase of production capacity and the improvement of launch technology, the cost and launch cost of satellites can be further reduced in the future.
As of February 2023, Space-X has launched more than 3,800 Starlink satellites and is currently in orbit with more than 3,100. The existing constellation scale and networking structure of "Starlink" can cover almost all regions except the poles without difference. According to this concept, Musk's Space Exploration Technology Corporation plans to launch 12,000 communication satellites in space low-Earth orbit between 2019 and 2024, building a giant 3-layer satellite network. According to the plan, SpaceX will launch a total of 42,000 Starlink satellites.
At present, Starlink satellites are currently in orbit in versions 1.0 and 1.5. Among them, version 1.0 was launched from May 2019 to the end of May 2021, weighed about 260 kg, did not have the ability of laser communication between satellites, and each satellite relied heavily on the network interface of the ground station located within its ground coverage area; Version 1.5 began to be launched on September 14, 2021, each weighing about 260 kg, the main change from version 1.0 is that it is equipped with inter-satellite laser communication equipment, with inter-satellite laser communication capabilities.
Early Starlink satellites have no way to communicate directly with each other, if satellites want to communicate with each other must be transferred through the gateway earth station, which will lead to Starlink services can not cover places where there is no way to establish an earth station, and the biggest improvement of version 1.5 Starlink satellites is that they have laser communication capabilities between satellites. Since the launch of the first batch of improved satellites into orbit on September 14, 2021, subsequent satellites have been equipped with laser intersatellite link components, which can realize information transmission and exchange between Starlink satellites in the sky, and data can be directly transmitted between satellites. In this way, the direct communication between Starlink satellites in orbit greatly reduces the dependence on the earth station, which can be said to completely liberate the coverage capacity of Starlink signals and improve the low-latency service guarantee capability of Starlink system.
At present, Starlink 2.0 is 5 times heavier than Starlink 1.0, and the communication capacity is 10 times higher than Starlink 1.0. The greater the weight of the communication satellite, the greater the number of transponders that can be carried, and the greater the processing power. At present, the maximum speed of Starlink 1.0 in some parts of the United States reaches 301Mbps, and the speed will exceed gigabit after a 10-fold increase.
The Starlink 2.0 satellite is expected to weigh 1.25 tons, and because the Falcon rocket cannot meet the orbit requirements of Starlink 2.0 in terms of size and angle, SpaceX plans to use a new launch vehicle "Starship" to send the satellite into orbit. Starship can launch payloads that weigh about 10 times as much as Falcon 9 rockets.
The advantages of Starlink satellites are: high transmission rate, wide coverage, large number of satellites, low cost, strong overall survivability, small shape of ground terminals and easy forward deployment. At present, Starlink is mainly operating in 50 countries in North America, Europe, Oceania, Asia and other places. So far in February 2023, more than 20,000 sets of Starlink terminals have been used in Ukraine.
On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved SpaceX's launch of 7,500 satellites for its second-generation Starlink and allowed the company to begin deploying the system, while it began reviewing the company's 29,988 satellite launch proposals. Immediately after December 3, SpaceX announced its "Star Shield" plan with obvious military characteristics, which shows that the "Star Shield" plan mainly relies on the second generation of "Starlink" satellites to achieve functions. SpaceX defines "Star Shield" as a satellite constellation serving national security, different from the commercial operation of Starlink, "Star Shield" is designed for the US military and government departments, currently mainly providing remote sensing, communication and payload hosting services, and "Star Shield" uses additional encryption technology on the basis of Starlink data encryption services to ensure the security of managed payload data processing to meet official needs. The "Star Shield" constellation is actually a military version of the "Starlink" constellation.
Second, the development trend of military applications of the "Starlink" system
The U.S. military relies heavily on geosynchronous orbit satellites for communications, so they cannot afford the consequences of the loss of high-value satellites. In order to avoid risks, the US military proposed the "mosaic warfare" thinking, allowing low-value, networked, neuron-like systems with self-organizing capabilities to replace high-value weapons, so that even if the enemy destroys some nodes, the remaining nodes can still form powerful capabilities. SpaceX's Falcon rocket has rapid deployment capabilities, which can quickly deploy a large number of Starlink satellites in a short period of time according to the needs of the battlefield, which is the basis of space "mosaic warfare". In the future, SpaceX is likely to develop corresponding reconnaissance and strike satellite platforms based on the needs of the US military and relying on the existing "Starlink" platform through foreign cooperation development and integrated mission loads. SpaceX's cooperation with the US military will be further deepened and expanded in the future, and space military application technology and platform will become an important direction for its future research and development.
(1) Complicating the electromagnetic space combat environment
According to SpaceX's plan to launch in August 2021, Starlink satellite version 2.0 is about to be launched. Version 2.0 satellites have nearly 30,000 satellites and will be distributed in low-Earth orbit at altitudes of 328 to 614 kilometers, providing higher communication bandwidth and lower latency than version 1.0 satellites. The volume of satellites will increase, and the power generated by solar panels will also increase. Under this circumstance, the possibility of the new 2.0 version of the "Starlink" satellite being equipped with various types of special early warning reconnaissance and surveillance, navigation timing, and electronic jamming has greatly increased, and its future application in electromagnetic space operations will also be significantly expanded. The significant increase in space electromagnetic space equipment will complicate the space electromagnetic space confrontation environment and may become the focus of future space confrontation, which is worthy of vigilance.
(2) Enhance redundant network communication capabilities
The deep integration of the U.S. military and Starlink will provide the U.S. military with redundant communications command capabilities and enhance its survivability in complex electromagnetic environments. The U.S. military is promoting the military application of satellite communication networks such as Starlink to verify its potential in "multi-domain warfare." Since 2018, the US Air Force has tested and evaluated the application of Starlink satellite terminals in military refueling/transport aircraft platforms; In May 2020, the U.S. Army signed an agreement with SpaceX to conduct a three-year cooperative R&D test of the Starlink satellite's cross-network data transmission capability. In the US Army's 2020 "Fusion Project" exercise, the application verification of commercial satellites in network communications, ground remote sensing reconnaissance and other fields was also highlighted, with the goal of compressing the time from sensor to shooter from 20 minutes to less than 20 seconds.
In March 2022, the U.S. Air Force's 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base in Utah conducted high-speed communications tests to support the F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter's agile combat deployment on the front line, the key of which is the Starlink satellite. Details of the test program include the F-35's data transmission during landing and readiness, data from Starlink satellites to terminals, from terminals to Air Force data adapters, and finally to F-35s for updating operational data and information. The test results proved that the data transmission speed through the "Starlink" satellite was 30 times higher than before.
In addition, Starlink will also effectively solve the problem of submarine communication. The nuclear submarine has dived hundreds of meters deep to the bottom of the sea, its whereabouts are confidential, its mobility is flexible, and it is difficult to carry out timely and efficient communication. Although the long-wave communication currently in use has a large coverage, it has little transmission content, and is cumbersome and error-prone to use. Starlink's global reach allows nuclear submarines to communicate by releasing dedicated communication buoys wherever they are.
(3) Increase reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities
In August 2017, when Space X filed an application for trademark registration with the US Patent Office, the application scope of Starlink expanded to satellite imaging, remote sensing and other reconnaissance fields. If the "Starlink" satellite is equipped with optical observation payloads in the future, taking advantage of the numerical advantage, it can greatly shorten the revisit time of reconnaissance, and even achieve 24-hour uninterrupted optical monitoring of key areas, with high-resolution and high-revisit rate full-dimensional all-weather reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities. If the optical observation payload of the Starlink satellite is combined with artificial intelligence, it can realize automatic identification and classification tracking of surveillance targets. The image recognition system has a high recognition rate of true and false targets, strong anti-interference ability, and real-time reconnaissance of ground and large target moving objects. The combination of Starlink satellites and US ground transmission stations can construct a space-ground integrated monitoring system, which will greatly enhance the US military's dynamic perception capability of global and regional battlefields, especially the integrated and coordinated combat capabilities of various weapon systems.
(4) Enhancing missile early warning capabilities
Starlink satellites have the ability to launch omnidirectional beams, which can telemetry, track and control spacecraft, and then transform them into high-precision systems for calculation, simulation and prediction of launch vehicles/missiles, providing intelligence support for subsequent interception work. Starlink is significant in early warning of missiles. The best way to intercept ballistic missiles is to destroy them before launch or early in flight, such as building some satellites in Starlink into missile warning satellites, which can achieve real-time monitoring of ground missile bases. Early warning and interception are carried out during the missile launch stage, which greatly improves the anti-missile effect and the probability of success. Once Starlink shares situational awareness information with the THAAD, Aegis, Arleigh Burke-3 destroyers and land-based surveillance systems deployed in East Asia, it will be able to quickly transmit the acquired missile launch information to the anti-missile systems of the US military and its allies in a timely manner, greatly improving the success rate of interception.
(5) Develop navigation and positioning capabilities
The Multimodal Guaranteed Navigation Automatic Vehicle Research Center of Ohio State University in the United States calculated the navigation and positioning function of the "Starlink" satellite, and after complex algorithm modeling, they found that the "Starlink" satellite can achieve a positioning accuracy of 8 meters on the earth's surface. And this is only the positioning effect brought by 6 "Starlink" satellites, if more satellites are connected, it can eventually achieve the accuracy of GPS navigation satellites of 0.3 meters to 5 meters, and even provide target data for GPS-guided bombs. The communication speed of the US military's GPS satellites is only in the order of 100 bits per second (bps), and cannot transmit updated and more accurate data information about the actual location of the target. The communication speed of "Starlink" satellites can reach hundreds of Mbps, the GPS receiver is more accurate, and through software upgrades and combined with existing GPS signals, "Starlink" can be built into a satellite positioning and navigation system.
The "Starlink" positioning system using real-time orbit and clock data will make the user's position accuracy reach less than 30cm, while the downstream bandwidth occupied by "Starlink" will not exceed 1%, and the power consumption will not exceed 0.5%. The navigation and positioning system composed of "Starlink" satellites can be used as a backup for GPS to enhance the redundancy of the US military's navigation and positioning capabilities. However, one of the core reasons why GPS can be used in military use is that pseudo-random code technology is used, and the interference signal strength can still be correctly received when it is 100 times the strength of its own signal. Using the Doppler effect of "Starlink" to locate is very sensitive to signal frequency, because it is relatively easy to suppress and jam fixed-frequency signals in military electronic countermeasures. Therefore, the anti-jamming ability of this method does not meet military requirements, and it is more suitable as a backup navigation and positioning means when GPS is jammed.
(6) Enhancing space electronic countermeasures capabilities
When equipped with electronic warfare equipment, Starlink satellites can enhance the ability to monitor radio frequency radiation sources and electronic jamming capabilities against ground and space targets. With the launch of low-orbit satellite projects in various countries, the future low-orbit electromagnetic space combat equipment has increased significantly, and the surge in the number of military electronic information equipment will inevitably lead to a surge in the number of countermeasure equipment, and direct interference in space has obvious distance advantages and barrier-free advantages. At present, the US military has been developing space electronic warfare equipment specially used for ground radio frequency radiation source monitoring, and the integration of "Starlink" related equipment is also highly feasible. Similarly, Starlink can also carry electronic warfare equipment dedicated to electromagnetic detection and attack of low-orbit satellite targets, so as to paralyze the electromagnetic space combat capabilities of opponents' low-orbit satellites when necessary.
(7) Give play to the role of communications relay
At present, the US military cannot directly integrate the "Starlink" terminal equipment into the F-35. Once the F-35 cannot carry an electronic pod to perform a highly stealthy combat mission, Starlink's terminal can be mounted on the wingman, and then shared by the wingman to the F-35 and F-22 through the military data link to create an "advanced tactical unmanned relay platform." Since Starlink can transmit data for the F-35, it means that it can transmit data for other fighters of the US military, especially the B2 and B21 stealth bombers, once the "Starlink" system is integrated, its stealth and combat capabilities will be greatly improved. In 2019, the US military also used "Starlink" to conduct UAV command tests, proving that it can break through the communication bottleneck of UAVs, allowing operators to command a large number of UAVs at the same time to perform group military operations.
Third, a few revelations
As the U.S. military's military demand for low-orbit constellations continues to increase, Starlink satellites will play an increasingly important role in future wars. Once the 42,000 Starlink constellations are deployed and put into operation, they will surely change the shape of future warfare. As an important part of the national security system, space security must receive full attention, and the mainland also needs to further develop space industry technology and develop and improve the independent and controllable satellite capability system, so as to enhance modern military combat capabilities, improve the capabilities of the national space security system, ensure national security and enhance international status. How to effectively deal with the electromagnetic space combat threat posed by Starlink will be the focus of our consideration.
(1) The integration of constellation capabilities is an important development direction of constellations
Countries attach great importance to this technological trend and expect to be able to get a head start in building a large integrated constellation. The "sphere" constellation fully embodies Russia's ambitions. In addition, the US Space Development Agency SDA has also launched the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), hoping to create a military architecture with eight comprehensive capabilities such as data and communication, tracking, surveillance, perception and navigation.
At present, satellite applications in communications, navigation, remote sensing and other aspects of the mainland are developing rapidly, and have played a pivotal role in all walks of life. However, the existing applications are generally relatively independent and systematic, and the organic integration of application capabilities and services has not been realized, which limits the efficiency of information acquisition and utilization to a certain extent. Through the integration of satellite service capabilities, the integrated application of communication, guidance and remote transportation should be developed, and a constellation of comprehensive service capabilities should be created. This requires further improving technology and service capabilities on the existing basis, promoting the integrated innovation and development of various applications, and building an integrated service system, so as to bring new development space to the entire industry and provide an important infrastructure for the development of the information society.
(2) Laser communication technology is an important means of constellation systematization
The United States is the first country in the world to carry out space optical communication research, and has implemented a number of satellite laser communication research programs. In addition to the U.S. military, NASA, which represents the U.S. government, and SpaceX, a commercial space company, are both validating space laser links. Europe also carried out space laser communication technology research earlier, with a relatively clear plan and made certain breakthroughs. Japan's satellite laser communication technology research has also developed rapidly, and a series of demonstrations and verifications have been carried out. Mainland China's research in the field of space laser communication technology started relatively late, but in recent years it has achieved remarkable results and breakthroughs. Research on laser communication technology can accelerate the construction of systematic constellations, meet the growing needs of future space activities, and realize its potential for civil and military applications, which is also an important inspiration for the Russian "sphere" constellation.
(3) Commercial development is an important driving force for the construction of constellations
Satellite communications, navigation and remote sensing are important space infrastructures that play an important role in key areas of national social economy, such as transportation, agriculture, forestry and fishery, hydrological monitoring, meteorological monitoring and reporting, power dispatching, ecological environmental protection, disaster prevention and mitigation, and public management. The 14th Five-Year Plan has also repeatedly proposed to strengthen the construction of emerging information infrastructure and improve space infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation and remote sensing. Therefore, the development of satellite application industry, driving the development of a large number of downstream industries, and giving full play to its commercial value, will further promote high-quality economic development and achieve value multiplication and spillover effects.
(4) Accelerating the construction of low-orbit satellite constellations is an urgent strategic task
We should give full play to the advantages of the national system, proceed from the national strategic needs and market needs, make overall plans and concentrate resources on the development of low-orbit satellite constellations. At the same time, it combines benign competition and survival of the fittest in the market with government policies, funds and technical support, giving play to the role of state-owned enterprises as the main force and the new force of private enterprises. In all aspects of the construction of space-based network information system, we absorb superior resources from all walks of life, concentrate superior forces, and continuously explore the paths and modes of collaborative innovation in engineering practice. At the same time, we must increase research and investment in space and civilian military integration, give play to the advantages of military-civilian integration and concentrating forces to do big things, accelerate the victory of recoverable rocket technology and satellite miniaturization technology, reduce satellite launch costs, build the mainland's low-orbit giant satellite constellation, form a latecomer advantage, seize the strategic commanding heights of low-orbit, shape and respond to future war forms, safeguard the mainland's space rights and interests, and win future wars with strong enemies.