Comment by gpm
10 hours ago
Which is irrelevant because offensive launches can destroy many orders of magnitude more launches worth of payloads. Even with simple kinetic means. Though these days I think I'd expect to see directed energy weapons adding even more zeros to that.
Have you done the math? "Many orders of magnitude" means, IMHO, at least three. A regular Falcon 9 carries 60 Starlinks IIRC, so three orders of magnitude means destroying 60 thousand at once.
What is the offensive launch that can destroy 60 000 satellites in one mission? I don't think it exists.
I admittedly hadn't done "math", but doing so the claim checks out.
Retrograde launch, with 20 tons of small objects (say 1mm radar absorbing ceramic ball bearings to cause maximum chaos and minimize even the theoretical ability to avoid the oncoming disruption). Dispersed into a wide variety of LEO orbits by ejecting them as the rocket changes orbit. You wouldn't deny the orbital sphere for very long, because small objects would drop out quickly, but everything in it would be destroyed.
There's 10k starlink satellites alone that could all be destroyed by this. Which is the right number of orders of magnitudes.
Admittedly you can't get far above that currently though, since there are only about 15k satellites in orbit... but a single directed energy weapon could destroy practically every satellite in every orbit instead of only the low earth orbit ones so as a log-of-portion-remaining weapon it gets those extra orders of magnitude.
Space is not a safe place - if you want to keep things safe you keep them on firm ground protected by the atmosphere. If you want to keep them really safe you put them below the ground.
No idea about 60,000, but it's not impossible to make whole orbits unusable by launching piles of small junk.
Its will ruin it for everyone, but Russia or China is certainly able to do that.
The Starlink orbits are so low that stuff deorbits quite quickly withou active propulsion. So while this might work for a while, you woul need to replenish that junk for it to continue working, in all the many orbifs you would want to deny.
An EMP from a high altitude nuclear detonation would do the trick.
you do not need an orbital capable launcher to carry an anti-satellite weapons. Modified SAMs are sufficient.