The AP Alleges That Russia Is Actively Developing an Anti-Satellite Weapon to Counter Starlink

Apparently, the Associated Press has put out a recent article citing intelligence assessments of two unnamed NATO countries that allege that Russia is actively developing a new type of anti-satellite weapon, specifically with the intent of countering Elon Musk's Starlink constellations. The proposed weapon system has been described as a zone effect or area of effect weapon system which would release hundreds of thousands of small

high density metal pellets that are millimeters in diameter like shrapnel or BBs out into low earth orbit in order to create these massive destructive clouds in the orbital paths used by Starlink satellites, potentially disabling or destroying multiple satellites through high speed collisions rather than precise targeting. Now according to this intelligence data, apparently Russia's motivation for this is because they view Starlink as a major threat

due to the fact that it's thousands of low-Earth orbit satellites have provided critical communications for Ukraine's military and civilians since the 2022 invasion. Now, Russian officials have previously referred to these commercial satellites that support Ukraine as quote legitimate targets, meaning that they would target them because they're supporting Ukraine

and when I heard this it made me think of that one scene from Andor when Luthien rail escapes the Cantwell class arrestor cruiser when he shoots out a bunch of like metal projectiles into the tractor beam satellite and then he escapes jumping a light speed I don't know why that's the first thing I escapes jumping a light speed I don't know why that's the first thing I thought of when I saw this but here we are