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Re:Intel expands Oregon Fab building; 18A Node now 2024 by credit_guy on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:59PM (#32380308)
> shooting down GPS sats

It's unlikely China or Russia, or anyone, has the capability to shoot down GPS sats. A number of countries, the US included, have demonstrated capability to shoot down satellites, low orbit satellites. GPS satellites are in geosynchronous orbit, which is a whole different species of animal. Shooting down an LEO satellite can be done with an SM-3 missile which has a mass of 1.5 tons. That's significantly lower than the mass of a rocket needed to put the satellite in orbit, and that's possible because SM-3 is not designed to reach orbital speeds, only orbital heights. Its primary mission is anti-ballistic missile defense and ballistic missiles can reach thousands of kilometers altitude, but not tens of thousands.

In theory one can design a missile that can reach GSO heights without reaching GSO speeds, but that requires a dedicated project, which would be extremely expensive, and very difficult to keep under wraps. All missile launches are pre-declared to minimize the risk of a nuclear war. You can find a list of all orbital and suborbital launches on wikipedia (e.g. [1]). If anyone tried to test a missile that can reach GSO heights, they couldn't keep it a secret.

One can then try to shoot down GSO satellites with full size rockets, like Falcon Heavy. But there are 31 GPS satellites out there, and 30 Galileo. I doubt either Russia or China (or even America) have 60 full size rockets available to do a blitzkrieg strike against the GPS satellites.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_launches_i...

Re:Intel expands Oregon Fab building; 18A Node now 2024 by webmobdev on Monday August 08, 2022 @03:34PM (#32389983)
I remember reading somewhere that some country is working on laser weapons to knock out satellites. That makes more sense than using a missile as all you want is to disable a satellite, not necessarily destroy it and add to the space junk ...
Re:Intel expands Oregon Fab building; 18A Node now 2024 by LargoLasskhyfv on Sunday August 07, 2022 @08:56PM (#32381423)
GPS isn't geosynchronous. And not that high. Three relevant graphics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System