Critical infrastructure facilities in Odesa gain access to StarlinkThe equipment providing access to the Starlink satellite Internet has been installed at a number of critical infrastructure facilities in Odesa, Ukraine's southern Black Sea port city.Ukrinform cites the press service of the Odesa City Council.“Odesa has received kits to ensure access to the Starlink satellite Internet. A number of important critical infrastructure facilities in Odesa have installed bases to access Starlink satellite Internet,” the statement reads.The City Hall has expressed gratitude to Elon Musk, founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX, as well as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov, for providing Odesa’s key agencies with a stable communications source.As reported, the first Starlink satellite terminals were installed in Odesa on March 12 to back up conventional Internet connections in case of problems. One of the first batches of SpaceX equipment set to provide access to the Starlink satellite network was mounted at the Odesa Humanitarian Centre on Rishelievska Street.It should be noted that the bases are set up in areas where connectivity was and could be unavailable due to hostilities. Their addresses of the installation are not disclosed.
I can’t read this article because it’s behind a paywall, but supposedly Ukraine’s military has been really making use of Starlink terminals: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/specialist-drone-unit-picks-off-invading-forces-as-they-sleep-zlx3dj7bb
Ukraine has already received thousands of antennas from Musk’s companies and European allies, which has proved “very effective,” Fedorov said in an interview with The Washington Post Friday.“The quality of the link is excellent,” Fedorov said through a translator, using a Starlink connection from an undisclosed location. “We are using thousands, in the area of thousands, of terminals with new shipments arriving every other day.”
They renamed "Starlink Premium" to "Starlink Business": https://www.starlink.com/business
I doubt the drones are using Starlink directly, that seems like a mis-translation. The dishes are not that small and disposable (yet).The main use appears to be as a mobile communication system between separate military units.
<snip>Also note that the area is still a fairly permissive RF environment. For reasons unknown, the russians have not brought their full EW warfare capabilities to bear (particularly certain EW trucks), and there is still in theory the option of bulk jamming all Starlink frequencies with a very strong transmitter, drowning out all the terminals (though this is a step of last resort as you would be trying to gray out half a hemisphere pumping that much power out).<snip>
In order to effectively jam Starlink requires a whole sky jammer. Such a jamer because of just how much ERP it would have to generate over such an semi half spherical omidirect radiation field would go through ~ 2t of fuel per day. It would be a 75kw to 100kw transmitter.
In order to effectively jam Starlink requires a whole sky jammer. Such a jamer because of just how much ERP it would have to generate over such an semi half spherical omidirect radiation field would go through ~ 2t of fuel per day. It would be a 75kw to 100kw transmitter. It would be a supper simple target for anti-radiation munitions. A directed jammer which would work against a GEO sat would not work against multiple moving Starlink targets all over the sky.Starlink terminals uses a very narrow beam width of around 5 degrees. And as mentioned it moves and even jumps to totally new orientations. Starlink Terminal ERP is likely to be from 4W to 20W in that very limited moving 5 degree spot. anything outside of that direction may not be able to pickup the signal at all since it would look a lot like just more background noise with its err code correction and wide band digital data that has small percentage of repetition. Although a Starlink UT could be effective targeted it makes for a very stealthy target.
With the kind of barrage jamming need to cover any good sized area, a small network of triangulators could pinpoint the source and feed the coordinates to interested parties in no time. No hi falutin HARMs or other over priced gear needed.
Quote from: Nomadd on 03/21/2022 05:32 pm With the kind of barrage jamming need to cover any good sized area, a small network of triangulators could pinpoint the source and feed the coordinates to interested parties in no time. No hi falutin HARMs or other over priced gear needed.Don't think there is a need for ground based triangulators. The Starlink Constellation itself can sweep for emitter sources with instant location of the emitter. Since the Starlink beam footprint is small enough the line of sight from the emitter to the comsat is more than accurate enough to initiate extreme remedial action. Even more amusing is that a Starlink comsat could scan for and located a jamming emitter then pass that ground co-ordinate to the remedial forces almost instantaneously. Said remedial force in the future could be an airborne drone with a Starlink terminal commanded through the Starlink network. This means Starlink Constellation is truly the Skynet from the Terminator franchise, no matter the denials from Musk Darn, @DanClemmensen ninja me.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 03/21/2022 06:20 pmQuote from: Nomadd on 03/21/2022 05:32 pm With the kind of barrage jamming need to cover any good sized area, a small network of triangulators could pinpoint the source and feed the coordinates to interested parties in no time. No hi falutin HARMs or other over priced gear needed.Don't think there is a need for ground based triangulators. The Starlink Constellation itself can sweep for emitter sources with instant location of the emitter. Since the Starlink beam footprint is small enough the line of sight from the emitter to the comsat is more than accurate enough to initiate extreme remedial action. Even more amusing is that a Starlink comsat could scan for and located a jamming emitter then pass that ground co-ordinate to the remedial forces almost instantaneously. Said remedial force in the future could be an airborne drone with a Starlink terminal commanded through the Starlink network. This means Starlink Constellation is truly the Skynet from the Terminator franchise, no matter the denials from Musk Darn, @DanClemmensen ninja me. That would be the U.S. getting directly involved in the war. Not a small decision.