The sky above us is becoming a crowded
place. On the very fringes of our
atmosphere, satellites are helping us to
communicate, find our way around, making
our modern, busy lives possible. They
are also watching us, allowing nations
to spy on nations, and providing the
communications that are necessary for
modern warfare. At the time of making
this video, there are about 12,000
satellites in Earth's orbit around our
planet. More than 7,000 of these are
part of the Starlink mega constellation,
a mission by Elon Musk's SpaceX program
to surround Earth with an interconnected
web of satellites. And this is merely
the beginning. The Starlink fleet is set
to grow with thousands more satellites
to be launched, perhaps as many as
42,000.
These units aim to bring internet
connection to the furthest regions of
the globe, from the most barren Arctic
tundra to towering mountain peaks,
persisting in all weathers and when all
other communication systems fail. But
Starlink is not the only satellite
venture from SpaceX. Less known is their
military project codenamed Star Shield,
which aims to build a satellite
constellation with the support of a $1.8
billion contract with the US Department
of Defense. Despite the glossy and
marketable name, Star Shield is shrouded
in secrecy. It's designed for government
use to support national security, but
how and at what cost?
I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
Astramm. Join me in our skies today as
we attempt to decode the corporate speak
of the Space X Star Shield operation and
what it means for our security, privacy,
and everyday lives. We'll explore what
Star Shield actually is and how it links
to SpaceX's more commercial satellite
project, the Starlink Mega
Constellation.
As satellite populations continue to
boom, we'll explore the background that
is our new age space race. How the
players have changed and who is really
in charge of this final frontier.
Before we march into the atmospheric
battlefield, let's take a closer look at
a more familyfriendly SpaceX satellite
project, Starink.
First announced in 2015, Starlink was
designed for the purpose of rebuilding
the internet in space and aimed to place
4,000 satellites in low Earth orbit. Low
Earth orbit is standard for most
satellites, even the International Space
Station, and can be anywhere between 160
and 2,000 km above Earth's surface. The
goal of this system is connectivity
where you least expect it. You need only
plug the system in and point it at the
sky with their antenna to get online.
Besides digital gameplay in the
mountains or taking a work call on the
beach, the idea of worldwide internet
connection actually has the potential
for some really positive social change.
Schools in remote areas of Fiji and the
Solomon Islands have employed the use of
Starink to access digital teaching
resources, which is making education
more accessible for all. The Starling
fleet can be used to aid communications
in the event of natural disasters as
it's less vulnerable than standard
undersea cables. This came to light in
2024 when a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in
Vanuatu took out the country's only
undersea cable. Starlink was quickly
able to deploy 300 satellites which
restored connection for emergency
services and aided the national recovery
operation. These success stories have
contributed to Starink's popularity
surge and the service now has over 5.4
million subscribers across the globe
with an estimated revenue exceeding $3.2
billion US.
These are all great selling points, but
what about the satellites themselves?
How do they actually work? Well, the
latest Starlink satellites are not
small. They are 30 m long and weigh as
much as a small car, orbiting merely 550
km above the Earth's surface. They are
launched in a stack, as many as 60 at a
time on Space X's own Falcon 9 vehicles,
reusable two-stage rockets that have
already completed nearly 500 missions.
When deployed, the satellites use
navigation sensors to survey the stars
and position themselves incredibly
accurately. Each unit contains three
space lasers which help it communicate
with other units to form a global
internet mesh. They each also have eight
antennas to connect with receivers on
the Earth's surface and they can adjust
their position with ion propulsion
systems that use argon for precise
maneuverability.
As I mentioned before, there are now
over 7,000 Starling satellites currently
in orbit, and this number is expected to
grow. As you can see from this
availability map, the fleet already
covers much of the Western Hemisphere,
encompassing around 2.7 billion people.
But SpaceX wants more, and several other
countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and
even Antarctica are likely to be
connected in the near future. It's quite
the satellite empire.
There may not be loads of information
about Starlink, but there's far less
about Star Shield, SpaceX's other
venture into the world of satellites. It
can be said that Star Shield is like
Starlink's darker military cousin, and
there are plenty of reasons why. like
Starlink is composed of low Earth
orbiting satellites, but this time they
serve the sole purpose of defense and
are wholly owned and controlled by the
US government following the $1.8 billion
contribution to the project by the
National Reconnaissance Office in 2021.
They have enhanced encryption and other
security features for secure data
processing and employ a modular design.
This means that the satellites can
integrate a wide variety of payloads. Be
it for communication, earth observation,
target tracking, early missile warning
and so on.
Governments can mix and match, designing
a Star Shield satellite that best fits
their specific requirements and defense
objectives. The exact details of how
Star Shield has been used are pretty
vague, but there's no doubt that it is
in use. The US Marines have pounced on
the new tech, implementing units across
its second marine division for both
basic communications and more
specialized tasks like targeting and
fires. On their website, Major Tim Ren
from the second division praised the
satellites for their ability to maintain
services during a service level training
event despite poor weather conditions
and power outages which knocked out
other satellite transmissions.
Likewise, in 2023, SpaceX won a one-year
contract with the United States Space
Force worth $70 million. And there has
been recent speculation that Space Force
may continue to use SpaceX satellites
rather than front the cost of building
their own. The project is rapidly
gaining attention from clients of the
highest office and shows no signs of
slowing down anytime soon.
But how similar is Star Shield to
Starlink? An important point to mention
is that both Starlink and Star Shield
can use the same interatellite laser
communication terminals which use laser
beams to form high-speed data links
between satellites instead of
traditional radio signals. SpaceX boasts
the only communications laser operating
at scale in orbit today, which basically
means there is much less chance of other
satellites, privately owned or
otherwise, interfering with Star
Shield's data. This would obviously be
appealing from a defense perspective,
and clients can be fairly confident that
it works since SpaceX has been using
this technology at scale for as long as
Starlink has been running. In many ways,
Starlink is like the portfolio SpaceX
has brought along to its interviews for
Star Shield, and this has proven to be a
pretty effective sales technique. It's
clear from the marketing of both
products, the Starink is meant to be a
public consumer service, while Star
Shield is used for national defense. But
with such similar technology, is there
ever any crossover? Indeed, the line
between Starlink and Star Shield is
blurred when you consider recent and
ongoing conflicts across the globe. This
year, Musk has taken to X, formerly
Twitter, to state that his Starlink
system is the backbone of the Ukrainian
army and that their entire front line
would collapse if he turned the system
off. And he has even done so momentarily
on occasions.
Starlink is used by the Ukrainian
military for internet connection in
remote war zones and the Polish
digitization ministry pays an estimated
$50 million a year for the privilege. So
Starlink is being used for defense
purposes and could easily be on par with
Star Shield as a military asset. It may
only be providing internet connection,
but it's what can be done with the
internet that turns it into a weapon.
And to simply turn it off would change
the tide on this conflict within a
matter of hours. That's an awful lot of
responsibility for whoever's running
these satellites, perhaps more than
anyone could have envisioned when
Starlink was first proposed.
In a different conflict nearly 2,000 km
away, Starink was allowed to start
operating in a single hospital in Gaza
last year as an exception to the
internet blackout Israel had imposed
across the region following months of
negotiations. This has enabled vital
communications between humanitarian aid
workers in this region. Though Israel is
still reluctant to allow more coverage
for fear that it could be used against
them in the war. These are all sensitive
and politically charged issues, and some
fear that SpaceX's involvement will make
them all the more difficult to resolve.
Essentially, this technology has given
private companies like SpaceX a seat at
the table for military debates that they
would never have been privy to without
it. For those involved in conflict,
having to depend on a private company
rather than a humanitarian NGO or an
elected government official for services
that could determine their fate in that
conflict is risky. And yet, it's often
an inevitable choice in the landscape of
modern warfare. Without this technology,
they face the likelihood that it will be
used against them with disastrous
consequences.
Perhaps Star Shield is SpaceX's way of
disentangling Starink from military
uses, but this separation won't happen
overnight, especially whilst these
conflicts continue. And even if pieces
won, there are logistical issues to sort
out with both projects. As I mentioned,
Starlink and Star Shield use the same
communication terminals and laser beam
data links, which could make it harder
for them to function independently of
one another. But as long as they remain
linked, we can expect things to get
messy, especially if the same satellites
can be seen as both a valid military
target and a vital service for citizens.
But putting conflict aside, are there
other consequences of our increasing use
of satellites? How could they impact our
skies and our dreams of exploring them
in the future?
But Starlink isn't just a problem due to its cost, its ethics, or its insecurity.
In addition to questions about how these
satellites will play into current and
future conflicts, there are concerns
about how much this hardware is now
filling up the sky. Astronomers already
complain about the amount of light
pollution that is reflected by so many
satellites and the emissions that leak
from Starling satellites can blind radio
telescopes on Earth. A study published 2
years ago in astronomy and astrophysics
investigated these emissions and found
that the radiation leaks exceed
regulations set by the International
Telecommunications Union and that the
interference from the second generation
of Starling satellites was 32 times
stronger than the first generation.
Since this study was published, many
more such satellites have been deployed
and SpaceX has not yet finished building
its mega constellations.
China is also entering the space race
with their G Wang low Earth orbit
communication satellites in a project
that looks remarkably similar to
Starink. They plan to send up a further
13,000 units, which will add to this
growing congestion.
It's not just a problem for astronomers.
It is already a problem for the
operators of the satellites themselves.
Earlier I mentioned that staling
satellites are able to adjust their
positions using their ion propulsion
systems. Well, there is a very good
reason for them being able to do that.
In the year ending November 2024, the
Starling constellation made 100,50
adjustments to avoid collisions with
debris and other objects. That is one
movement every 5 minutes. Estimates
vary, but there are plans for perhaps
four or five times as many satellites in
low Earth orbit than are up there at
present. In addition to SpaceX and the
Chinese government, companies such as
Amazon and One Webb have plans for their
own mega constellations. Not only will
all these units have to avoid each
other, but getting them up into orbit
will add to the amount of unwanted and
unplanned objects that they will have to
avoid, namely what you call space junk.
Every launch generates debris, a type of
space pollution, from parts of launch
vehicles to entire rocket bodies.
As far back as 1978, NASA scientist Don
Kesler predicted that within 30 or 40
years, there would be so much debris in
low Earth orbit that collisions would
become inevitable. His predictions have
so far come true. We know of more than
25,000 objects larger than 10 cm up
there, such as from fragments of
destroyed equipment or even entire
derelic spacecraft and launch vehicles.
These are the easier objects to detect
and avoid. There are also estimated to
be over 1 million smaller fragments from
1 cm to 10 cm littering the outer
reaches of our atmosphere. This doesn't
sound like much of a problem until you
consider that these miniature missiles
move at speeds of more than 25,000 kmh.
If you remember the principles of
physics from school, you'll know that
the energy given off in any collision is
a function of mass and velocity. A
bullet dropped into your hand, for
instance, feels like nothing at all.
Fire the same bullet from a rifle, and
it can punch a hole through a steel
sheet. These pieces of debris are
traveling at more than five times the
speed of a bullet fired from a rifle. As
more objects crowd into low Earth orbit,
some people believe it inevitable that
one of these collisions will result in
damage that sends even more debris
traveling at incredibly high speeds into
the path of other satellites, resulting
in more and more collisions and more
debris. This chain reaction is what we
call Kesler syndrome, and you can learn
more about it on Astramm in our video
dedicated to this topic.
If Kesler syndrome does become a
reality, it could wipe out every
communication satellite and piece of
hardware currently in low Earth orbit
above us, including, for example, the
International Space Station and the
Hubble telescope. It would leave such a
vast amount of shrapnel forming a layer
around our planet that it would be
almost impossible to launch anything
into space anymore. We would face the
danger of becoming prisoners on our
planet, trapped by a dangerous layer of
our own rubbish that could take years,
decades, or even centuries to clear
away.
Now, that is quite the doomsday scenario
and definitely not one for the
claustrophobic. But is the situation
really that serious? As the combined
Starlink and Star Shield network
continues to grow, will it inevitably
bring about its own destruction? Well,
as long as the satellite population
continues to expand, the probability of
collision will increase. This
probability is how Starling satellites
decide whether or not to adjust their
positions in the sky. As they are
programmed with a specific limit for the
odds of collision and move as soon as
that limit is passed. So, it's not that
they know that a collision is imminent.
They just move as a precaution to be on
the safe side. The odds of collision
that is widely accepted by NASA and
others is 1 in 10,000. But in 2024,
SpaceX quietly changed Starlink's limit
to 1 in 1 million. That seems extra
cautious. 100 times more cautious to be
exact. So, SpaceX must have a reason to
be playing it so safe. With a change
like this, Starling satellites have to
undertake movements to adjust not every
5 minutes, but every 30 seconds or so.
With so much extra movement from so many
different companies satellites, it
becomes incredibly difficult for anybody
to keep track of where all these
satellites are supposed to be. And a
serious collision does actually become
much more likely. Satellites won't just
be adjusting as a precaution. they'll
have to do so or face destruction.
A collision between satellites
themselves could potentially kickstart
Kesler syndrome, but that's not the only
way it could happen. Instead, the
collision could come not from another
satellite, but from a weapon designed to
target it. Welcome to the world of
counterpace.
We haven't mentioned Russia yet, which
may seem surprising because they sent
the very first functioning satellite
into space called Sputnik 1 in 1957.
But despite this early advantage, Russia
does not really have much stake in the
satellite space race. Back in 2023, they
had a total of 220 satellites in orbit,
which was only about 2.5% of the global
satellite population at the time. This
is due to a lack of manufacturing power
in Russia for satellites. In fact, they
are only capable of building about 40
per year, which is dwarfed by the output
from companies like SpaceX. So perhaps
it was this struggle to make a satellite
mega constellation that prompted Russia
to look into other ways of exerting
power on the world stage.
In February 2024, the White House
confirmed it had evidence to suggest
that Russia was developing an
anti-satellite nuclear weapon. It's
important to note that no nuclear
weapons like this have actually been
deployed yet and the public details of
Russia's progress have been vague, but
Russia did veto a suggestion to reaffirm
the now 58-year-old prohibition on
putting nuclear weapons in space
originally made by the outer space
treaty. And even if nuclear anti-sat
weapons are still a way off, Russia is
also developing non-nuclear weapons such
as lasers, ground launched missiles, and
electronic warfare systems to target
satellites.
On the 15th of November 2021, Russia
tested a direct ascent anti-satellite
missile called A235
Nudol, which successfully destroyed
Cosmos 1408,
one of their own obsolete satellites.
This littered low Earth orbit with the
resulting debris and set off alarm bells
at the Petersonen Space Force Base in
Colorado, USA. Resulting from the test,
more than 1,500
trackable pieces of debris were
identified with the potential to
generate hundreds of thousands more
smaller pieces as they continue their
orbital path around the planet. This has
been condemned by the US Army as a
deliberate disregard for the security,
safety, stability, and long-term
sustainability of the space domain for
all nations. The fallout from this
single test will pose a threat to
activities in outer space for years to
come and will make collision avoidance
even trickier for satellites trying to
maintain mega constellations like
Starlink and Star Shield. So Kesler was
not shooting for the moon with his
theory. And as we've seen, there are
plenty of ways for it to come true.
Whether it's a collision between
satellites that got their calculations
wrong or an intentional attack from a
hostile nation, the resulting debris
could be enough to kickstart a chain
reaction of destruction. And things
won't be looking good for our future
missions to explore space.
There is another aspect of this story
that we haven't considered yet. If this
proliferation of orbiting electronics
does manage to continue without
triggering its own destruction, either
accidental or deliberate, what happens
to all this equipment when it reaches
the end of its life? Right now, for the
military star shield hardware to
function, it needs the Starlink network
across the globe. These satellites have
a life of four to 5 years. And as we've
seen, they cannot simply be left to add
to the congestion and become more space
junk when they are no longer of use. As
the old saying goes, what comes up must
come down.
SpaceX states on its website that its
satellites are demisable, meaning that
they fully break up and burn up during
atmospheric re-entry. And if any
fragments were to escape this fate,
SpaceX assures that they would have
negligible impact energy. This is
somewhat reassuring, but SpaceX can't
possibly promise 100% demisability for
all of its satellites across every
situation for as long as Starlink and
Star Shield continue. Nor can any
satellite operator for that matter. And
sadly, after conducting some research
into this, some scientists have noted
that this impact energy may not be as
negligible as we thought. This year, an
article was published in Nature
revealing that many companies do not
have clear plans for removing old
satellites from orbit and that it can be
very difficult to predict where they
will land. The article detailed two
events in the past couple of years where
large pieces of space junk had landed in
Kenya and Uganda at the speed of a small
missile which scattered wreckage up to
40 km without warning.
With more uncontrolled satellite
re-entries like this, any location on
Earth could be in a firing line and even
commercial airplanes are put at risk.
What's more, many operators leave their
space junk to decay naturally wherever
it does land, which is a near impossible
task for materials built to withstand
the extremes of space flight. This
proves that there is at least some risk
from satellite re-entry, both for people
and the environment, and that affected
areas are often given little to no
warning when things do go wrong. And
even if the satellites do burn up during
re-entry, as they're supposed to, this
can cause damage of its own. The part of
our planet's atmosphere where this
burning takes place is home to the
notoriously fragile ozone layer. When
these satellites, which are largely made
of aluminium, burn up in the atmosphere,
they produce nano particles of aluminium
oxides, which are known to accelerate
ozone depletion. A study published in
2024 sought to investigate this impact
and found that the demise of a typical
250 kg satellite can generate around 30
kg of aluminium oxide nano particles.
And bear in mind the V2 Starling
satellites weigh around 800 kg. Once
produced, these nanop particles can
remain in the atmosphere for decades,
leading to a significant risk of ozone
depletion. So even the safe demise of
these satellites can have some major
environmental impacts. We've made some
huge efforts towards protecting our
ozone layer following the ban on
chlorofluocarbons
or CFC's back in 1979.
It would be a shame to see that effort
go to waste because of some improper
satellite disposal.
All in all, it's clear that there are
some major concerns arising from our
modern-day satellite use. These issues
go beyond just Starlink and Star Shield.
But as a key player in this new space
race, SpaceX will have a big role to
play in deciding how to tackle them.
Given the risks, we need decisive action
so that space can remain a viable domain
for us to explore whilst hopefully
maintaining the benefits that satellites
can provide.
When we began research for this video,
we merely thought it would be
interesting to find out more about the
Star Shield project. Military innovation
in science and technology has helped to
create many of the things we take for
granted in our daily lives. From
microwave ovens to duct tape and we are
interested in all things space. Details
on the inner workings of Star Shield and
Starink have been hard to come by which
is understandable since these satellites
are currently playing an active role in
several major conflicts around the
globe. But it's no less important for us
to know how this technology is being
used and how it can play into our
futures. Satellite production has become
his own space race for the 21st century
and for a whole host of players are
trying to get a piece of the pie. The
benefits can be huge for the economy,
education, disaster recovery, social
equality, and more. But given the
growing influence of those wielding the
control, it's worth carefully
considering how their role will change
as the line between corporate leadership
and political influence continues to
blur. Politics aside, satellites are
shaping our planet's orbital zone, which
itself is a finite resource. In our
planet's low orbital zone, space is
indeed limited, and without careful
planning, we may reach a point where
satellites are the only thing we ever
launch into orbit again. My goal with
Astramm has always been to make space
accessible to everyone with these videos
sharing the wonders of our universe and
beyond. I'm just hoping that with these
warnings in mind, SpaceX and other
satellite operators will be able to
achieve their goals whilst ensuring that
the skies remain accessible for the
generations to come. After all, what is
space without room for our ambition to
explore and understand it? So, thank you
for watching and see you next time.
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