China could attack Starlink-like satellites with submarine laser weapon: naval study

PLA scientists are proposing a type of laser attack submarine that could be mass-produced to go up against SpaceX’s Starlink satellites

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Submarines could hold the key in China’s defence against enemy satellites, including the enormous Starlink network. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:00am, 20 Jul 2024

Chinese submarines armed with lasers could take out SpaceX’s Starlink satellites if China’s security was at risk, according to a study by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) scientists.

In the study, a submarine with a megawatt-class, solid-state, laser weapon installed in its midsection could stay submerged while it raised a retractable, “optoelectronic mast” to fire at satellites, before diving back down to depth.

This type of laser attack submarine could be mass-produced in the future and deployed in various oceans to counter military threats to China, said the project team led by Wang Dan, a professor with the Naval Submarine Academy, in a peer-reviewed paper published last month in the Chinese-language journal, Command Control & Simulation.

For anti-satellite missions, the biggest challenge was not hitting the satellite, but hiding the attack, the scientists said.

“Currently, the primary means of anti-satellite operations relies on ground-to-air missiles, but this approach has certain issues, mainly in terms of concealment,” Wang and her colleagues wrote.

Missile launches are often accompanied by long trails of smoke. Conducting the attack from a surface location can easily expose one’s own position, leading to destruction by enemy firepower. This is “too risky”, the team wrote.