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Everything about the Starlink Satellite Internet project. Part 10. Starlink and the Pentagon

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Starlink and the Pentagon







Since Elon Musk's announcement of the 4425-satellite Starlink project, there have been conspiracy claims that the project is funded by the Pentagon. However, among the official contracts from the Pentagon, there is only one - for $ 28 million from the Advanced Technologies Administration (DAPRA), unless, of course, we assume the existence of an underground tunnel from Fort Worth, where dollars are printed in the USA, to the SpaceX cosmodrome in Boca Chica in the same Texas. ...



That being said, SpaceX is undoubtedly working hard to sell Starlink and its services to the military. So, in 2019, testing of a satellite channel was organized between the ground terminal and the aviation terminal on board the C-12 aircraft through the first Starlink satellites of the Tintin type, which showed a speed of 610 Mbit / s. In September 2020, new tests took place within the framework of the same Global Lightning program, already with the current generation of Starlink satellites and C-17 and KS-135 aircraft during army exercises.



The military has used Starlink satellites to test its advanced Battle Management System, which will link the Pentagon's air, sea, ground and space assets. During an Air Force military exercise earlier this month, Starlink connected to "a variety of air and ground vehicles," including the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, according to Air Force Purchasing Chief William Roper. The Air Force was impressed with how SpaceX's Starlink satellites performed during this live-fire exercise. “What I saw from Starlink was impressive and positive,” he said during a roundtable on Wednesday. “These are cleverly designed satellites, intelligently deployed in orbit. So there is a lot to learn from the way they are designed and I think we can learn a lot from them. "“The military must be prepared to play a strategic role because we need communications in many parts of the world where there are no commercial providers,” Roper said. “We can be a trusted buyer for companies like SpaceX and others looking to sell communications services around the world. SpaceX may not think about clients overseas, but we have our fleet there. SpaceX may not think about customers in the Arctic, but our planes are there. "



The US Department of Defense plans to rely even more on satellites for its new military doctrine, All Domain Operations. The strategy will require air, land, sea, space and cyberspace assets to be directly linked to each other. They will transfer data and information among themselves and, possibly, even activate each other's weapons. A key factor will be a constellation of satellites like SpaceX's Starlink that is large enough to withstand attacks and keep working.



In a September 2020 Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) newsletter, a note was published with the words:
«Global Lightning Testing SpaceX Starlink: Global Lightning AFRL Lewis McChord USMC , . , , , COMSEC Starlink ».


SpaceX's greatest success in the "military" direction is the signing in mid-2020 of an agreement on free testing and study by the military of this network and its services for three years. Note also that at present the Pentagon has announced a competition for the development of a project for its own low-orbit network (similar, in fact, Starlink) called STL (Space Transport Layer). An analysis of open data on the TOR for this project shows that at the moment Starlink has two significant drawbacks from the point of view of the military: the lack of coverage in the Arctic and the need for ground gateways.



It should also be noted that the ability to act as a space network of radars (radar stations) sometimes attributed to the Starlink network on the Internet does not stand up to the most elementary criticism. Target detection radars operate at much lower frequencies in the L- and S-bands (i.e. 1-2 GHz), and not in the Ku- and Ka-bands of Starlink (11-30 GHz). Moreover, the main factor limiting the technical characteristics of radars is the low power of the received signal. In this case, the power of the received signal decreases as the fourth degree of range (that is, to increase the range of the locator by 10 times, you need to increase the transmitter power by 10,000 times). Considering that the range of transported radars (aircraft) is usually up to 200 kilometers, with a maximum resolution of 10 meters,then a radar station in Earth orbit with an altitude of 550 km will require extremely high power, unattainable for a satellite weighing less than 250 kg.



Another option for the "dual" use of Starlink constellation is the proposal of scientists Todd Humphreys and Peter Iannucci of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, who claim to have developed which uses Starlink satellites, combining traditional GPS signals to provide positioning accuracy up to 10 times better than GPS and is much less susceptible to enemy interference. The problem with GPS, they said, is that these signals are extremely weak by the time they reach Earth, and are easily jammed by random interference or electronic warfare.The scientists received multi-million dollar funding from Petagon (US Futures Command) to work for one year on this topic.



Humphreys and Iannucci's idea is to use a simple software update to modify Starlink satellites to combine communication capabilities and existing GPS signals to provide positioning and navigation services.



They argue that their new system may even, paradoxically, provide better accuracy for most users than the GPS technology it relies on. This is due to the fact that the GPS receiver on each Starlink satellite uses algorithms that are rarely found in ordinary consumer goods to determine its location with an accuracy of several centimeters. These technologies use the physical properties of the GPS radio signal and its coding to improve the accuracy of position calculations. Essentially, Starlink satellites can do complex computational work for their users.



Starlink satellites are Internet routers in space (for the current generation of satellites (artificial earth satellites) this is a DISPUTE STATEMENT !!! but for the Gen2 generation it is quite possible to have processing on board), capable of transmitting data at speeds up to 100 megabits per second. In this case, GPS satellites exchange data at a rate of less than 100 bits per second.

“There are so few bits per second available for GPS data transmission that they cannot afford to include new, highly accurate data about where the satellites actually are,” says Iannucci. "If you have a million times more power to send information from your satellite, the data can be much more accurate."


He estimates that the new system, which Humphreys calls "fused LEO navigation", will use instant orbit and time calculations to locate users with an accuracy of up to 70 centimeters (by comparison, most GPS systems in smartphones, watches and cars are accurate to a few meters ).



But a key benefit for the Pentagon is that unified LEO navigation will be much more difficult to block or cheat. Not only are its signals much stronger at ground level, but the antennas for its microwave frequencies are about 10 times more directional than GPS antennas. This means that it will be easier to pick up true satellite signals than signals from a jammer. “At least that's hope,” says Humphreys.



Humphries and Giannucci calculate that their combined navigation system LEO can provide continuous navigation services to 99.8% of the world's population using less than 1% of Starlink's bandwidth and less than 0.5% of its electrical power.

“I really think this can lead to a more reliable and accurate solution than just the GP. Says Todd Walter of the Stanford University GPS lab, who was not involved in the study. "And if you don't need to modify Starlink satellites to do this, this is definitely a quick and easy way."



However, it is necessary to take into account 2 points, the first is that the existing satellites of the first generation cannot be used for this idea, and secondly, terminals for improved navigation and allowing to obtain megabit speeds must receive a signal in the Ku band (11/14 GHz) from the Starlink satellite , and will be significantly larger than existing navigators operating in the L band (1-2 GHz)







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