In May of this year, a debate arose in Chinese academic circles about the threat posed by the global Starlink satellite network. Today, Elon Musk no longer hides that Starlink is focused on the military, which deepens the concerns of the Chinese. Another issue is that there is no easy solution to destroying thousands of satellites without threatening friendly spacecraft. But the Chinese found a solution: the nuclear bomb.The other day PLA physical scientists published an important paper on the model they created to calculate the deactivation of orbiting satellites in China’s peer-reviewed scientific journal Nuclear Techniques. It is said that the model is very sensitive and allows calculations to be done in minutes, thus making it possible to eliminate even threats such as hypersonic attack.
A 10-megaton nuclear bomb could destroy Starlink
The proposed solution is a relatively controlled detonation of a relatively weak 10-megaton nuclear warhead at a certain altitude. Detonation of the warhead directly in orbit is considered dangerous, because, firstly, its decay products are formed in a limited volume, which does not create the necessary destructive effect, and secondly, the radioactive particles are highly radioactive, which will be captured by the Earth’s magnetic field and threaten absolutely all spacecraft It will create a generation.
Instead of detonating a warhead in orbit, an explosion at an altitude of 80 km is proposed, where there is still enough air for atmospheric gas molecules to become involved in the formation of a radioactive cloud. Such a cloud will rise to an altitude of 500 km in five minutes and spread over an area of approximately 140,000 km2, which will become a kind of trap for satellites that will be partially or completely damaged during its passage. Thus, with a single warhead, it will be possible to disable hundreds and thousands of satellites in a certain orbit and not harm friendly devices.
High altitude nuclear tests were being conducted by the USA on Johnston Atoll west of Hawaii. According to Chinese physicists, their proposed model precisely mimics the behavior of the radioactive cloud in tests in the 1950s and 1960s.
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