“The Russians have managed to shut down all communication systems in Ukraine except Starlink. We are fighting their jamming efforts,” said Elon Musk

9 comments

1. Starlink at the zero line was always on borrowed time. It’s nearly trivial to put a few broadband jammers in the air to target a specific grid square, making any communication with the constellation impossible. Russian Orlan drones fly completely uncontested all over the front lines right now and their control and telemetry frequencies are well below 3GHz, so mounting 10-50GHz jammers on them is not a problem. These drones (which many people mocked early during the war) have proven themselves as a highly effective multi-purpose platform.

   The only viable solution is point-to-point wireless or wire/fiber connectivity. I’m a big fan of fiber myself. If you can stretch out a TOW control line to 4km, you can certainly do that for comms to the zero line.

2. EW seems to be the one area where Russia are formidable, I do hope NATO have some tricks up their sleeves. Meanwhile the Ukraine military are suffering

3. Except it’s not trivial to jam a phased array antenna based system. It’s one of the most valuable features of phased array systems, they can filter interference from a source whose bearing is sufficiently off axis from the intended transceiver. It’s why Starlink has managed to function in such a dynamic EW environment that they were never intended for. Don’t write them off just yet. If anything expect a proliferation of phased array antenna solutions for comm systems used everywhere. A couple of years ago I ran an evaluation program for high capacity, beyond line of sight radio communication systems. We looked at the best of the best from the who’s who of defence contractors with the vast majority of solutions using standard antenna implementations. Similar results across the board until we tested a solution made by a Norwegian company that made everything else we’d looked at previously look like kids walkie talkies. The main difference was this solution used a phased array antenna. It could dynamically adjust to find transmit paths around obstructions as the two stations moved independently of each other. Where traditional systems were failing and providing unusable bandwidth, this system was still delivering truly impressive throughput and did so beyond the horizon. I knew then that military communications technology was about to take a generational leap.

   And running and, more importantly, maintaining, kms of FO runs is a fools errand. Way too easy to cut and the definition of single point of failure.

4. Liar. My phone works, but soldiers Starlink turned off during Kharkiv offensive start.

5. Maybe him and his alt-right shitheels will actually stop supporting Putin

6. Oh, now Elon wants to be on the right side of history.

   Someone must have had some words with him in the last 6 months.

7. I elon helps Ukraine, I will forgive all his stupid ass shit ✊🏽🇺🇦🤙🏽

8. Or, maybe it’s an inside job at Starlink. Russians do compromat, intimidation, and bribery best, not technology.

9. I call BULLSHIT

   Musk is a Russian puppet, he is likely aiding them.