After the Starlink satellite network demonstrated incredible resilience and effectiveness in providing communications in war zones, its potential role in a potential conflict over Taiwan has become a serious conundrum for Beijing. Since China would not allow this communications link to be used by its adversaries, Chinese scientists are exploring the full spectrum of jamming scenarios – from simple radio jamming to the detonation of a nuclear weapon in orbit.
New computer modeling by Chinese scientists from Zhejiang University and the Beijing Institute of Technology suggests a shockingly simple, yet highly theoretical method: a massive swarm of drones.
Electromagnetic Shield: The Solution Lies in the Sky
The simulation showed that to completely block the Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan, it would theoretically be enough to deploy between 1,000 and 2,000 drones, each equipped with jamming equipment.
According to calculations, under ideal conditions and a well-synchronized network, only 935 drones (nodes) are needed. They should be positioned at an altitude of 19 km above the ground, located at a distance of 4.8–9.6 km from each other. In such a configuration, the jammers would create an overlapping “electromagnetic shield“, which can effectively suppress the signal even from more than 10,000 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit.
The use of simpler and cheaper jammers would increase the number of drones needed to 2,000, but the idea remains the same: a cheap and quick-to-deploy system, the carriers of which could also be balloons or high-altitude aircraft.
The Gap: Spherical horse in vacuum
However, here comes the moment of disappointment for Chinese engineers. The scientists themselves openly admitted that their research is incomplete and approaches the humorous physics task of a spherical horse in a vacuum. Why?
They did not take into account the uneven mountainous terrain of Taiwan, which would significantly hinder the creation of a uniformly effective jamming shield. Even more critically - the work of Taiwanese air defense and electronic warfare systems, which have sufficient resources to cope with such an air threat, was not taken into account.
Despite the absurd simplification of the initial parameters, the intention is clear: Starlink poses a serious threat to China in the event of an escalation of tensions, and blocking it with drones is seen as the least harmful scenario for all parties to the conflict - better a swarm of drones than a nuclear detonation in orbit. But can this electromagnetic shield to turn from simulation into reality is a matter that depends on many more factors than the scientists in Hefei have considered.