Starlink

fry Starlink satellites

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Starlink is much more than a service that provides internet anywhere in the world, as demonstrated in the Ukrainian warit is also a strategic technology. For China, Starlink satellites are a threat to national security and They have been looking for ways to neutralize them with lasers for some time. Now, researchers have developed a weapon that could fry them without problem. Microwave. They tell it in South China Morning Post. Researchers at the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology have developed a generator for a high-power microwave weapon. Its name is TPG1000Cs and it is capable of delivering 20 gigawatts of power, plus it can run for a full minute. It represents a notable leap with respect to other systems that were only capable of operating for a few seconds, in addition to being much more voluminous. Click on the image to open the post in X Starlink in the spotlight. Elon Musk’s satellite network keeps China awake at night, to the point that academic articles proposing solutions to neutralize them They are counted by tens. The reason, as we said, is Starlink’s ability to tip the balance in a conflict, such as a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan. It already happened in the Ukrainian war: Starlink became the communications backbone of the Ukrainian armyallowing them to react quickly even if ground communications had been destroyed. lighter. In addition to offering much greater power, the TPG1000Cs is also much more compact and lighter. It measures 4 meters and weighs 5 tons, which may seem like a lot, but there are other microwave weapons such as Sinus-7 which weighs 10 tons and only works for a maximum of 3 seconds. To achieve this, they have used an aluminum alloy and have also designed the energy storage tubes in a U shape, so that the energy bounces back and forth, offering the same performance in a smaller space. This makes it more manageable when transporting it by land, sea or there is even talk of the possibility of placing it in orbit. invisible attack. The use of such a weapon It presents a series of advantages. What it does is store a large amount of energy and release it in a concentrated and very intense beam. On the one hand, the absence of a projectile prevents an explosion from occurring and generating debris, which in turn could impact other satellites. On the other hand, the fact that it is an invisible attack gives the attacker the option of denying their involvement, something that it has already happened in other cases. Effectiveness. According to researchers’ estimates, a microwave weapon with an output of one gigawatt could disrupt communications from Starlink satellites operating in lower orbits. Starlink has had to reduce the orbit of its satellites to avoid collisionsmaking them more vulnerable to ground attacks with directed energy weapons like this one. If China also places its new weapon in orbit, it would be even more lethal. In Xataka | China increasingly dominates technology on Earth. There is a place where it is still very far from the West: space Images | Starlink, Pexels

A Brazilian has shown that having Internet in mid-flight is possible with Starlink. It has also shown that it is a real danger

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If the Internet does not reach the plane, let the plane reach the Internet. One of the Azul Linhas Aereas travelers must have thought something like this, who along with another hundred passengers began to discount the first minutes of their flight. A flight that began on the ground but has not yet ended. And our protagonist tried to connect to the Internet during takeoff using a Starlink antenna and a battery that far exceeded the maximum allowed capacity. The flight has landed but is not over. And the company is now investigating what happened. On Instagram. It’s where the Azul Linhas Aereas traveler has published his invention with the following text: “Who hasn’t suffered the frustration of getting on a four-hour flight and not having Internet? When you get on the plane and the WiFi doesn’t work… Your problems are over.” The video briefly shows how the passenger places the Starlink antenna on the window and hooks it to the window blind. From it, a cable hooks up to a large battery stored in the pocket of the front seat. Click on the image to go to the original post What is Starlink? Starlink is a internet service through satellite connection designed by SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company. The system is simple, with thousands of satellites orbiting around the earth, the service seeks to ensure that a small antenna can provide Internet to anyone anywhere in the world, no matter how remote it may be. To do this, the customer mounts the antenna and points it towards the sky. From there a signal arrives that is interpreted by a router included in the pack to, in turn, multiply the signal so that we can connect to the network. Its latency is high compared to fiber optics, so it is not a system to compete with home connections, it is designed to provide Internet to areas without 4G or 5G coverage. And does it work on a plane? Of course, the operation is exactly the same as if we placed the antenna on the ground. In this case, what the airline passenger did was put the antenna in the window pointing outside to improve signal reception. For the rest, it works exactly the same as if we contracted Starlink to have Internet at home. In fact, Starlink service is being offered to airlines. And although it has been the trigger between the latest tantrum between Elon Musk and Michael O’Leary (CEO of Ryanair), the truth is that Starlink will be offered this year on Iberia, British Airways or Vueling flights. And the first tests with United Airlines They were already very satisfactory. Starlink improves what is already known because, although a plane also connects via satellite to offer Internet on its flights, the bandwidths that customers demand and its applications are increasing, which has been reducing the speed of data transfer that each device on board can enjoy. But it’s a danger. However, what this passenger has done is a real danger that is being investigated by the airline. In the Brazilian State Post Office They explain that the Starlink antenna was powered by a 60,000 mAh portable battery. Its 222 Wh capacity is far from the 100 Wh maximum that can be carried on board a plane according to Brazilian aviation regulators. Large power banks can be a danger on board, so Aeronautical authorities limit them in size and number. And it is that batteries can self-combust if a thermal leak occurs, which may be caused by overheating or a blow that results in a short circuit. The problem is already huge if we are on land But it can be much more serious if the plane is fully operational because lithium ion batteries are very difficult to turn off and, in addition, they release gases that are harmful to our health. That is why the size of the battery is limited and if an incident occurs, it is manageable by the crew. Photo | Wikimedia and Fallon Micheal In Xataka | Airlines are beginning to regulate and restrict the use of power banks on airplanes: South Korea leads the way

Germany does not want to depend on Elon Musk for war. So the largest weapons factory in Europe wants a “military Starlink”

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For decades, European security has rested on critical infrastructure controlled from the United States. But with the war back on the continent and space communications becoming a decisive military assetGermany is beginning to assume that it cannot afford depend on Elon Musk nor from Washington for something as basic as talking and fighting in case of conflict. A “military Starlink”. Rheinmetall and OHB are in preliminary talks to present a joint offer to create a satellite communications network in low orbit for the Bundeswehr, a system that in Berlin already is openly described as a “Starlink for the German army”. The initiative aims to capture part of the ambitious German plan for invest 35,000 million euros in military space technology, with the aim of providing a secure, sovereign infrastructure specifically designed for military use, reducing dependence on US services such as Starlink, owned by SpaceX. Technological sovereignty. The background of the project will be one of the great themes of this 2026, and it is both strategic and political, since the war in Ukraine has shown to what extent satellite communications in low orbit can be decisive when terrestrial networks are destroyed or degraded. Although Starlink (and its military version Starshield) became in a key asset for kyiv, many European countries distrust to base critical capabilities on a foreign private provider, which has accelerated plans to build national or European networks under state control. The weight of Germany. With this program, Germany aims to become the third largest investor world in space technology, only behind the United States and China, according to the consulting firm Novaspace. German military authorities have already defined the technical specifications and are preparing the tender, prioritizing coverage of NATO’s eastern flank, where Berlin deploys a permanent brigade of 5,000 soldiers in Lithuania as part of its defensive reinforcement. From armored to space. Traditionally associated with tanks, artillery and ammunitionRheinmetall is rapidly expanding its presence into new domains in the heat of German rearmament. At the end of last year it obtained its first major space contract, up to 2,000 million eurosto develop together with Iceye a constellation of radar satellites capable of operating at night and in bad weatherwhich puts it in a solid position to now aspire to a military communications system in low orbit. HBO and opportunity. For HBOthird largest European satellite manufacturer and navigation system supplier Galileothe project represents a key opportunity to strengthen its military business. The company faces the possible creation of a European space giant as a result of the merger of the divisions from Airbus, Thales and Leonardoan operation that its CEO considers potentially anti-competitive and that could leave OHB at a disadvantage if it does not expand its scale and capabilities. Boiling market. The simple announcement of the talks has OHB price skyrocketedreflecting the extent to which the sector perceives German military space spending as a catalyst for opportunity. That said, the project is still in an early phase, with no official comments from the companies or the Ministry of Defense, and is part of a growing competition for multi-million dollar contracts that will define who controls future critical military communications infrastructure in Europe. Image | Support Forces of Ukraine Command In Xataka | Germany is experiencing a new “industrial miracle” that it already experienced 90 years ago: that of weapons In Xataka | Europe’s largest arms factory faces an unexpected problem: earning an indecent amount of money

Thanks to Starlink, Papua New Guinea was able to access the Internet in its most remote areas. That dream is over

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Thousands of people in Papua New Guinea They have been left without an internet connection following the government’s order to suspend operations of starlink in the country. The decision has come amid a legal blockade that has lasted more than a year, and is affecting businesses, health centers and rural communities that depended on Elon Musk’s satellite service to stay connected. What exactly happened. In mid-December, the National Information and Communications Technology Authority (Nicta) ordered Starlink to cease all operations in Papua New Guinea because the company does not have a license to operate in the country. “Starlink is currently not licensed to operate in Papua New Guinea, and until the legal process is completed, services cannot be permitted,” account Lume Polume, CEO of Nicta, told The Guardian. The company has already completely withdrawn its services from the territory. Why was there so much hooking? Although there are no official figures on how many users Starlink had in the country, telecommunications analysts estimate that its terminals served thousands of people before the closure, including entire towns and districts in remote areas, according to the media. For many rural communities it was the only viable option since mobile networks are unreliable or non-existent, and other satellite services are much more expensive. Starlink offered fast, relatively inexpensive internet in places where connectivity had historically been a chronic problem. The real impact of going offline. The blackout has generated a series of important problems in daily life. Teachers like Simon Jack, who works at a remote secondary school in the Southern Highlands province, have explained to the British media that students need the internet to check their academic results and see where they have been admitted to study this year. “For many of them, Starlink was the only option that worked,” he says. In the health field, health worker Theresa Juni, from East Sepik province, counted that his clinic used Starlink to communicate with doctors in the city and send reports quickly. “Now we have to wait days or travel just to send information. For patients who need urgent care, these delays can be dangerous,” he warns. On the other hand, the medium assures that some farmers and merchants must now travel long distances to cities to access banking services and other transactions that they previously did online. The legal mess behind the blackout. The problem comes from afar. Starlink has been trying to get a license in Papua New Guinea since December 2023, but in March 2024 the Ombudsman Commission blocked its approval citing concerns about service reliability and regulatory compliance, according to inform RNZ. Nicta took the case to court months later seeking to overturn this directive, but the court decision is still pending. Meanwhile, the regulatory authority is “legally prevented” from issuing a license until the court rules. The Pacific is from Starlink. The irony is that Starlink has become a lauded service in other Pacific nations, especially after its deployment in Tonga after the 2022 volcanic eruption destroyed underwater internet cables. There the service was described as “transformational.” However, Papua New Guinea has been left out of this story for now. Just like account According to RNZ, last November, SpaceX’s director of global market access, Rebecca Slick Hunter, said at a conference in Port Moresby that the company was ready to activate services as soon as it received authorization, and that Starlink had already established a local entity in the country. Citizen reaction. About 200 people have signed an online petition asking that Starlink be allowed to operate legally, as confirmed by Nicta. Businessman and former MP John Simon has criticized harshly the situation: “This is really bad for this country. Internet and online services have been very expensive and slow for years, yet we cannot listen to ordinary people on the street and solve this,” he told The Guardian. “The Papua New Guinea government must do something for struggling small businesses. Ordinary people and small businesses depend on the cheapest and fastest option, and right now that is Starlink. This problem must be fixed.” Cover image | starlink In Xataka | Without making a noise, someone has eclipsed Elon Musk among the most influential millionaires in the US: Larry Ellison

China is launching more rockets into space than ever before. And the reason is very simple: not to depend on Starlink

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China has taken the lead in a disputed area: that of space sovereignty. To talk about space is to think directly about the POTbut the photo has changed in recent years. The space race It is no longer just a matter of government agencies, but also of private companies as SpaceXthe Spanish PLD Space either Blue Origin. Europe seeks its space without depending on anyone and countries like China and India are taking steps to expand your borders by looking into space. And, earlier this month, China complete four space missions. It is a clear blow to the United States. Rhythm. 2025 has marked a turning point in China’s aerospace industry. The country has broke his record of launches with more than 80 orbitals throughout the year (it was on 68 launches), adding the one with three Long March rockets taking off less than 19 hours apart. Something like this is within the reach of very few. Specifically, only within the reach of SpaceX in terms of pace. stress test. The litmus test took place at the beginning of December, when the Chinese space agency carried out a stress test on its system. Between the 5th and 9th of this month, China overloaded its entire launch chain. They used four different launch sites to test the extent to which their launch, logistics and telemetry centers could operate in good conditions. With this, the country wanted to check to what extent its different centers can operate almost in parallel, without interference and without hindering each other. This is key for routine launches of mega satellite constellations, but also for rapid responses during a crisis. It is also a trial by fire to see how optimized the process is in which the rockets can spend the shortest time possible at the launch points, without forming bottlenecks. What do they throw?. For this operation, four ports were mobilized: Hainan, Taiyuan, Xichang and Jiuquan. And what they have put in the space is… a little of everything: Mission 1: A Kuaizhou-1A rapid-deploy rocket launched from Jiuquan. In the cargo there were VDES satellites to identify ships and their purpose is dual: to monitor maritime traffic, but also to have an analytical capacity for data on the high seas. Mission 2: a Long March 8A rocket designed for a high rate of launches that started from Hainan. It carried 14 Guowang satellites, the state’s answer to Starlink. This is also the most strategicsince the Long March 8A is designed to compete directly against Starlink’s Falcon 9 in costs and launch rate. Mission 3: another Long March, 6A. It left Taiyuan without a confirmed payload, although it is a rocket that has previously been used to launch more Guowang satellites into orbit. Mission 4: a Long March 4B that took off from Jiuquan and is the most “military” of all. Launched Yaogan-47, a satellite recognition to “census lands and estimate crops.” It is still a remote sensing satellite, and we are in a very complex moment in the Pacific. CAS Space The fear of Starlink. One of China’s goals is to have its own Starlink system. This involves thousands of satellites orbiting and providing service, something that cannot be launched in one go. This intense four-day campaign puts on the table the logistical capacity of the Chinese space agency to be able to launch many launches in a short space of time without jeopardizing their reliability. It is a movement that will allow climb the launch of thousands of Guowang satellites into orbit and, when we talk about “fear” of Starlink, we mean that China wants to occupy the orbital space before it runs out of chairs. It is estimated that Starlink has more than 6,000 satellites circling and another 42,000 planned. China has 25,000 planned between Guowang and G60, but in space the law of “first come, first served” applies. The International Telecommunications Union assigns orbits and frequencies under this principle, so China does not want to fall behind the West. Specifically, against the United States. Sovereignty. In fact, there is an interesting “prick” with Musk’s satellites that has nothing to do with communication. Starlink has already demonstrated its usefulness in the war context (andn the war in Ukraine, for example), but also, in 2021 Tiangong space station had to maneuver twice to avoid satellites starlink. And we already know that Russia, China and the United States are preparing (and according to the United States, more than just preparing) for a war in space. In the end, it is a matter of spatial sovereignty. The United States is the proper name when we think about space, but China has been strengthening its position for decades and more recently has begun to occupy that space. And from the European Union it is alsoe is testing the ground for that spatial sovereignty. The goal of all agencies and governments is the same: not to depend on external technology. And this stress test by China when it comes to launching is a blow to its biggest rival. Image | CAS Space, Galactic Energy In Xataka | After many years trying to copy the Falcon 9, Elon Musk believes there is a company about to achieve it

Hispasat wanted to be the “Spanish Starlink” and connect rural Spain. It has failed miserably

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At the beginning of 2023 the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation launched the UNICO Rural Demand program with a clear objective: connect 1.3 million homes and companies in rural Spain to the internet thanks to Hispasat’s satellite internet services. Two and a half years later the project has proven to be an absolute failure. The question, of course, is why. The promise. Everything seemed fantastic in that project. The idea: offer a 100 Mbps connection at a price of 35 euros per month in those areas where there was no access to networks of at least 50 Mbps. To achieve this, satellite connections from Hispasat were chosen, and the project had a budget of 76.3 million in aid. From objectives to realities. The objective was for the entire population of Spain to have access to 100 Mbps networks in 2025, and this program wanted solve this challenge for rural areas in which there was no access to lines of more than 50 Mbps. According to government estimates, the project would cover up to 1.3 million homes, but after all this time we have known the number of installations: 11,486. It is a spectacular failure. Problems from the beginning. The Government awarded Hispasat —recently purchased by Indra— this contract to provide the wholesale service. 42 companies would be in charge of distribution and installation, but as soon as the project began, there was a big problem. Eurona, which was theoretically going to be the main installer of the service (65% of the registrations would be its own), entered bankruptcy proceedings and sold his assets in Spain Serenae. Telecos did not help. The large operators have not been especially proactive, they say in five daysand they have preferred to promote their fiber or rural 5G solutions even if that meant longer waits for users. The profitability for the operators was very limited, and is estimated at around 75 euros per registration. Telefónica, which should have been the main protagonist of the project, has barely accounted for 10% of the registrations, and curiously small local companies such as Celver, Gesico or Bluetel have doubled that share. Starlink is a lot of Starlink. Added to all this is the offer of the Starlink service, which is technologically very superior and also with a more attractive price. For 29 euros per month it is possible to access speeds of up to 300 Mbps and, above all, latencies of between 25 and 40 ms thanks to its constellation of Low Orbit (LEO) satellites at an altitude of 550 km. Hispasat satellites are geostationary, they orbit at 36,000 km high and this causes latencies much higher than about 600 ms, which means that videoconferences or online games cannot be held reliably in good conditions. And now what. The failure has been so resounding that Hispasat has had to return 22 million euros of the total public aid. Of those 76.3 million that came from European Next Generation funds, 36 million were destined to finance the registration costs (installation, antenna, equipment, etc.). The remaining 40.3 million were theoretically invested in the marketing of a service that registered 128,120 eligibility consultations, of which 75,733 met and only the aforementioned 11,486 were executed. The figures are absolutely terrible. Spain emptied, Spain poorly connected. This fiasco adds to that of other programs such as subsidies UNICO 5G Active Networks who have also had to face very serious obstacles. In March, the call 2024 of said program with aid worth 161.3 million euros to continue extending 5G infrastructure in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants. According to the Government of Spainthis project will allow 326,000 people in small towns to have access to these networks. The funds will also be used to expand 5G coverage across 6,800 km of the road network. In Xataka | SpaceX changed the space economy. Now he wants to do the same with the cost of satellites

Chinese researchers wanted to know if it was possible to block Starlink in Taiwan: now they have an awkward answer

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Communications have become the invisible thread that sustains any modern military operation. Troops, vehicles or missiles are no longer enough: without a stable and resilient network, the situation can become complicated. During the Ukrainian war, Starlink demonstrated be able to keep Ukrainian forces connected even under pressure, and has since been placed at the center of the debate over its role in military scenarios. According to South China Morning Posta group of Chinese researchers linked to defense institutions has examined to what extent that network could resist a large-scale interference attempt on a territory like Taiwan. Starlink is not a typical satellite network. Instead of relying on a few high-altitude satellites in fixed positions above the equator, it is made up of thousands of small satellites that orbit the Earth at low altitudes and on changing routes. This architecture allows a terminal on the ground to not always connect to the same satellite, but to jump between several in a matter of seconds, forming a flexible mesh that is difficult to interrupt. That dynamic behavior largely explains why it has become a key element in debates about electronic warfare. A laboratory experiment. The study that has put numbers to this scenario is titled “Simulation research of distributed jammers against mega-constellation downlink communication transmissions” and appeared on November 5 in the Chinese magazine Systems Engineering and Electronics. It is signed by a team from Zhejiang University and the Beijing Institute of Technology, an institution with a prominent presence in the country’s military research. It should be noted that it is not an operational document or an official proposal from the Chinese Army, but rather an academic simulation that explores, from a technical point of view, what it would take to interfere with a network like Starlink on a regional scale. {“videoId”:”x9ri2iu”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”How China, the biggest polluter on the planet, has also become the complete opposite”, “tag”:”webedia-prod”, “duration”:”740″} A constellation designed to avoid interference. The study does not limit itself to describing that the terminals change satellites, but analyzes how this change thwarts any attempt at sustained interference. When a hostile signal affects a link, the terminal automatically redirects traffic to another visible satellite, and the network adapts the channel and frequency in real time. That reaction, combined with highly directional antennas capable of concentrating the signal toward specific points, reduces the impact of interfering emitters. The researchers highlight that even if a connection is momentarily blocked, the network can restore communication from another angle or frequency almost immediately. A thousand drones in action? The simulation was based on real data from Starlink’s orbital positioning and modeled how the signal would behave for twelve hours over eastern China. The researchers placed a virtual network of jammers 20 kilometers high, spaced between five and nine kilometers apart, as if they formed a checkerboard in the sky. The study considers that these nodes could be installed on drones, balloons or similar aerial platforms, capable of supporting coordinated interference systems. Using 26 dBW power and narrow beam antennas, each node managed to block an average of 38.5 square kilometers. With that efficiency, at least 935 units would be needed to cover a territory the size of Taiwan, not counting redundancies, failures or geographical barriers such as mountains. In Xataka China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles The authors themselves acknowledge that their results are only an approximation. They explain that they do not have real data on the radiation patterns of the terminals or measured signal suppression coefficients, which limits the precision of the simulation. They also do not know Starlink’s internal adaptation mechanisms against coordinated interference. Even so, they consider that the model serves to estimate the scale of the necessary effort and opens a line of study that allows quantifying, although imperfectly, how a blocking strategy would work in a real scenario. Images | starlink In Xataka | Starlink satellites have transformed war: China and Russia work on “Starlink Killers” to deactivate them (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news Chinese researchers wanted to know if it was possible to block Starlink in Taiwan: now they have an awkward answer was originally published in Xataka by Javier Marquez .

Using free WiFi on airplanes almost never ends well. Iberia wants to change that with the help of Starlink

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IAG, the group to which Iberia belongs, has closed an agreement with Starlink to equip their planes with satellite connectivity. The Spanish airline promises that all its passengers They will be able to sail for free from 2026 with speeds comparable to those at home. Best free WiFi from the plane. Until now, wifi on airplanes It used to be slow, expensive or non-existent. With this agreement, Iberia ensures that it will offer free high-speed connection on all its flights, both short and long distance, regardless of the class in which the passenger travels. According to the company, Starlink technology It will allow download speeds of up to 450 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 70 Mbps, enough to watch streaming series, work in the cloud or play online while flying. How Starlink works. The SpaceX network is based on thousands of satellites located in low Earth orbit, which reduces latency and allows coverage even in remote areas or areas with poor accessibility. This infrastructure is what gives Starlink an advantage over other air connectivity providers, which rely on slower geostationary satellites or limited ground connections. Beyond Iberia. The agreement is not limited to the Spanish airline. IAG will implement the service on more than 500 aircraft of its companies: Aer Lingus, British Airways, Vueling and Level. According to the matrix, this will make the group the European operator with the most aircraft equipped with high-speed Wi-Fi. The first plane with Starlink will begin flying in early 2026, according to the airline in your press release. Part of a broader bet. This movement is part of the Iberia Flight Plan 2030which includes 6,000 million euros in investments. Part of that budget is allocated to digitalization, artificial intelligence and the creation of the so-called ‘Iberia City’, an aeronautical innovation center. Luis Gallego, CEO of IAG, pointed out that “staying connected in flight is increasingly important for customers” and that this agreement demonstrates how the group works “together to drive innovation.” The Elon Musk factor. Starlink is owned by SpaceX, the aerospace company founded and run by Elon Musk. Although the technology has proven its effectiveness In other sectors, from rural areas without coverage to military operations in Ukraine, its integration into commercial aviation is still in the initial phase. IAG thus joins other airlines such as Qatar Airways or Hawaiian Airlines, which have already announced similar agreements with Starlink. Cover image | Alexander Schimmeck In Xataka | The inevitable increase in air travel is leading us to a reality: there are no places, no planes, no planet for so many tourists.

It has 2,000 Starlink antennas on the roofs

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Elon Musk filled the sky with satellites to deliver Internet to every corner of the globe, and the world has found all kinds of applications for the ubiquitous service. After the prison with clandestine antennas and the narcosubmarine connected to StarlinkMyanmar buildings covered in SpaceX satellite dishes arrive. Many of the scams that circulate on the Internet are coordinated within it, including the increasingly common romance frauds. More than 2,000 Starlink antennas. Despite efforts by authorities in China and Thailand to root them out, Burmese “fraud factories” remain operational and are more technologically advanced than ever. Responsible for scamming billions of dollars from victims around the world, these guarded buildings near the Myanmar-Thailand border have their roofs covered in Starlink antennas. According to a Australian Strategic Policy Institute reportoperators replaced ground connectivity with Starlink terminals after allegedly being dismantled by local militias. Satellite images from February 18, just two weeks after the raid, already showed more than 1,000 satellite Internet service antennas. By May, Thai intelligence estimated that the number exceeded 2,000 antennas. What are these centers? In the February police operation, nearly 7,000 people were freed from a brutal system that forced them to run investment scams known as “pig butchering” and online romantic scams. A AFP investigation It tells what was experienced inside through a young Chinese man, Sun, freed after Beijing’s intervention. Lured by the false promise of a well-paying job in Thailand to support his family, Sun was kidnapped and sold to a scam center in Myawaddy, Myanmar for $20,000. Their job was to send fraudulent messages to targets in the United States following a script. One of these documents, 25 pages long, instructed scammers to adopt the persona of “Abby,” a nonexistent 35-year-old Japanese woman, to build a romantic bond with the victim. Once the target took the bait, he passed the contact on to a more specialized scammer. Sun relates that workers were beaten with electric batons and whips if they did not comply with orders or worked slowly. High fences, watchtowers, and armed guards deterred any escape attempts. Diesel generators and satellite Internet. These centers prospered in a border territory between Myanmar, Thailand, China and Laos that was already known as the golden triangle of drug trafficking and smuggling. Corruption and the power vacuum following the 2021 coup in Myanmar have allowed criminal syndicates to operate with almost total impunity and autonomy. Starlink’s ubiquitous coverage, combined with diesel generatorshas allowed these centers to be incredibly self-sufficient. They no longer depend on Myanmar’s unstable power and telecommunications network. Now they can operate almost anywhere, which is making them difficult to eradicate. Although the permissiveness of the Burmese militias also helps. What SpaceX says. Despite warnings from California prosecutors and alarm expressed by American politicians, SpaceX has not commented on the matter. The situation has escalated to the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress, which has launched an investigation. SpaceX has already proven in Ukraine its ability to disable terminals in specific geographic areas, a technology known as geofencing. Applying a similar measure in the areas of Myanmar where these centers operate would have an immediate impact, and with global implications. In the United States alone, losses from these types of scams amounted to $10 billion last year, an increase of 66% over the previous year. Starlink has played such an important role that the service, which is not officially licensed in Myanmar, has gone from not being on the country’s list of internet providers to being number one. Image | ASPI In Xataka | Facebook has become a drain for love scams: Morata’s crime is just the extreme example

It was practically impossible for a satellite to “ruin” the photo of another satellite. With Starlink already go twice

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Until recently, the idea that a terrestrial observation satellite accidentally captured another satellite in the flight was as an unlikely coincidence as finding a needle in a haystack. Space is an immense emptiness and The satellites move very quickly. But in the last year we have witnessed this phenomenon twice. And on both occasions, the protagonist has been a Spacex Starlink satellite. In a secret military base in China. On August 21, one of the new Satellites WorldView Legion of Maxar It passed over the Gobi desert, in China, with the aim of photographing the Dingxin Air Base: a high secret installation where China proves its most advanced fighters. The satellite achieved the image, but an unexpected intruder appears in it. A silver ship with two large solar panels and three spectra of colors cross Maxar’s photo, creating what an executive of the company described on LinkedIn as “accidental art.” What we see is actually a single satellite, the Starlink 33828immortalized in different wavelengths on one of the most sensitive places of the Chinese army. The trick is in the camera. The curious multicolored image is explained by how observation satellites and the incredible speed at orbit move. These satellites do not take a single image, but a series of images in different spectral bands almost simultaneously: a high resolution (panchromatic) and several in different colors (red, green, blue …) of lower quality. Then, an algorithm merges all this information to create the final photo, already clearly color. The problem of that “almost simultaneously” is almost. When the objective is the earth, which is relatively still with respect to the satellite, the system works perfectly. But when another satellite crosses in the field of vision at a relative speed of almost 1,400 meters per second (about 5,000 km/h), the camera captures it in a slightly different position in each of the color layers. The result is that spectral effect with several colored shadows. The Google Maps Starlink. This is the second time that a Starlink satellite accidentally sneaks into an alien photo. As We count in April 2025a Reddit user discovered a very similar effect on a Google Maps image on a rural Texas area. On that occasion, the photo was taken by a Pleaiades European satellite, and the result was even clearer: five silhouettes of the same object, corresponding to the close, red, blue, green and pancromatic infrared bands. The enormous amount of satellites in low orbit is turning an astronomically unlikely event into a new normality. Why are Starlink satellites. Because they are a majority. Spacex already has More than 8,300 Starlink in orbitmore than all other satellite constellations together. With its plans to expand the network to more than 30,000, the probability that one of them is crossed in the viewfinder of another satellite is growing. But also, they fly low. To offer a low latency internet connection, the Starlink operate about 500 km altitude in the low terrestrial orbit. This is the same orbital “highway” that most use the earth’s observation satellites, such as the Worldview Legion of Maxar (which are 518 km). His paths are destined to cross. Beyond the visual anecdote, these images are the symptom that the low orbit is increasingly congested, which forces perform constant evasion maneuvers To prevent collisions. Image | Maxar In Xataka | What types of satellites exist: guide not to get lost in a gigantic network of which we are increasingly dependent

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