“We can launch satellites faster than the Russians and Chinese can shoot them down,” Elon Musk on Starlink Threats

In a long interview with Business Insider, Elon Musk answered many questions related to the situation in Ukraine, to which he introduced the Starlink satellite Internet system in the very first days of the conflict.

Earlier, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, said that they were trying to hack and jam the Starlink satellite Internet system in Ukraine, but the hackers did not succeed. In a new interview, he was asked an interesting question: “What happens if the Russians and the Chinese target satellites? Will this be a threat to Starlink?”

It was interesting to look at the Russian anti-satellite demonstration* a few months ago in the context of this conflict. Because it caused a lot of controversy among satellite operators. It even posed some danger to the space station where the Russian cosmonauts are located. So why did they do it? This was a message before the aggravation of the situation in Ukraine. If you try to disable Starlink, it won’t be easy because we already have over 2,000 satellites. That means a lot of anti-satellite missiles. I hope we don’t have to test this in practice, but I think we can launch satellites faster than they can shoot them down with anti-satellite missiles.

Elon Musk

In early March, Elon Musk published a warning about the dangers of using the Starlink satellite Internet system in Ukraine.

* – in November 2021, the US State Department accused Russia of conducting anti-satellite tests. Then the US authorities said that Russia had tested a weapon that created a “cloud of debris” in orbit. Allegedly, Russia blew up one of its own devices.