Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.
Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil’s top court.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.
The move also led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a “dictator.”
I’m sorry. How do you expect a jet flying to get even close enough to a satellite to accelerate a missile to it?
Highest ever flow fixed wing “aircraft” is SpaceShipOne with rocket engines. Well above what a typical fighter jet might do: 112km height at 910m/s And a typical rocket will go what? Mach 2 or 3? So let’s say Mach 4 at 112 km, which is 1096 m/s
A typical Starlink orbit is either around 340km height or more typical 550km at either 7726 m/s or 7613 m/s at the different heights.
That gives a minimum distance traveled of at least 228km and a speed gap of 6630 m/s or 23868 km/h that the missile still needs to close.
There are probably ways that Brazil could try and destroy satellites if they want to. But launching missiles from (rocket powered) jets definitely isn’t one of them.
The actual launch process really is that simple. Here’s a picture of an F-15 launching one.
The ASM-135A was fired once, and destroyed one test satellite. That satellite was the first and only satellite that mankind has destroyed with a missile.
How many of those missiles does Brazil have? How fast can they produce them?
The first operational batch of 60 Starlink satellites were launched 5 years ago. They now have well over 6000 aloft. Starlink has a demonstrated ability to produce and launch well over 100 satellites a month. They are launched in batches of 20 to 60, using any space available in any of SpaceX’s launch platforms. After launch, they are deployed and scattered throughout the sky. Brazil would need 60 missiles to bring down just one launch worth of satellites.
They are planning a constellation of 12,000 satellites with 5-year lifespans. That’s 200 satellites a month. Can Brazil produce ASM-135A missiles fast enough to actually put a dent in the Starlink constellation?
I’m sorry do you want them to fire it more often?
And no, a 2 second Google search would show you they successfully used an SM-3 from a Navy ship as well. It would also tell you that Russia, India, and China have done it too. At least one of which is willing to sell their missiles.
And as pointed out earlier, the answer is yes. A country can produce missiles fast enough.
