Overview
- A study in the journal Systems Engineering and Electronics by teams from Zhejiang University and the Beijing Institute of Technology models a large-scale effort to disrupt Starlink across an area the size of Taiwan.
- The simulation estimates at least 935 synchronized airborne jammers would be needed to fully suppress service, rising to around 2,000 if lower-power units are used.
- Ground-based jamming is assessed as ineffective against Starlink, with the study recommending a distributed network of small jammers on drones, balloons, or aircraft to form a wide electromagnetic barrier.
- Starlink’s low‑Earth‑orbit architecture, with satellites moving rapidly and user links switching in seconds, creates spatiotemporal uncertainty that complicates sustained interference.
- Authors caution that the model omits terrain, platform failures, and future Starlink upgrades and provide no evidence the PLA can currently field the coordinated swarm the concept requires.