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Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

(www.cnn.com)
577 points mooreds | 6 comments | 18 Nov 24 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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philip1209 ◴[18 Nov 24 15:31 UTC] No.42173262[source]▶
It seems that the obvious solution could be Starlink-style meshes.

Can anybody comment on how fragile the Starlink protocol would be during a war? If its line-of-sight, presumably it would be hard to jam?

replies(7): >>42173309 #>>42173423 #>>42173540 #>>42175300 #>>42175588 #>>42176250 #>>42180665 #
1. aredox ◴[18 Nov 24 15:53 UTC] No.42173540[source]▶
Send some sharpnel on the same orbital altitude as Starlink and the whole constellation disappears.
replies(2): >>42173599 #>>42181059 #
2. bryanlarsen ◴[18 Nov 24 15:57 UTC] No.42173599[source]▶
True, if by "some" you mean a few thousand rocket launches worth of shrapnel.
replies(1): >>42173642 #
3. nixass ◴[18 Nov 24 16:01 UTC] No.42173642[source]▶
few dozen crashed satellites quickly become shrapnel on their own, spreading in all directions. not at "shrapnel speed" but nevertheless..
replies(1): >>42174604 #
4. bryanlarsen ◴[18 Nov 24 17:23 UTC] No.42174604{3}[source]▶
At Starlink altitude there is still operationally significant volumes of air. So much so that Starlinks need to altitude raise regularly. Starlink shrapnel would drop below Starlink orbit almost immediately, and completely deorbit in a month or so.
5. TiredOfLife ◴[19 Nov 24 08:16 UTC] No.42181059[source]▶
It's Starlink. It would take an sms from Putin at most for Musk to turn it off.
replies(1): >>42202638 #
6. inemesitaffia ◴[21 Nov 24 09:51 UTC] No.42202638[source]▶
Oh really