Could Starlink actually be destroyed?

The question in the headline has no short answer, and anyone who gives you a definite one either has not read the documents or is selling something. The investigation published in July clarifies some things and leaves others open. Separating the two is the most useful thing anyone can do with this story.

What the documents are

On 9 July 2026 The Insider, Der Spiegel and Le Monde published a joint investigation. It rests on four presentation slide decks delivered at the third China-Russia military-technical cooperation forum in Guangzhou in November 2023, plus a signed working protocol from talks in Moscow in June 2023. The forum itself had never been publicly disclosed.

The three levels described

The documents describe three escalating levels:

• legal and diplomatic pressure, using international regulatory bodies to constrain the service
• electronic disruption, occupying frequency bands and orbital slots, plus jamming
• physical destruction, combining cyber attack with low-cost anti-satellite weapons

Chart: NasNet. Based on the three outlets’ joint investigation.

Where the evidence line sits

This is where most retellings go wrong. The three levels above are in the documents. But the specific method that gets quoted around as the only workable route is not in them. It is a Russian concept that NATO services have been tracking, which makes it an intelligence assessment rather than an explicit clause in a document. A named jamming device falls in that same tracked category rather than in the forum papers.

The distinction sounds tedious, but it is the entire difference between “Russia and China wrote a plan to destroy Starlink” and “intelligence services believe Russia is working on such a concept”.

Why picking off satellites one by one is pointless

The Starlink constellation has thousands of satellites, and that number changes the equation. Disabling a handful in a network that size makes no noticeable difference to the service. Scale is itself a form of defence, and that is what pushes the discussion away from shooting satellites and towards larger, messier scenarios.

And why that option cuts both ways

The investigation points to something absent from the presentations themselves: the human cost. Any method that contaminates low Earth orbit does not distinguish between American, Russian and Chinese satellites, and it disrupts the orbit for years. China itself has hundreds of satellites at those altitudes. Whoever did it would be sacrificing part of their own infrastructure.

What the experts say

The Insider investigation carries analysis from think tanks such as RUSI on feasibility and intent, with no dissent recorded. The Ars Technica piece that most Persian retellings draw on gives a more balanced picture, reporting that some experts consider such a scenario unlikely while others say it is not impossible. We could not open the Ars Technica page, so we have not confirmed that part first hand. What both accounts share: no specific evidence has been presented that a weapon with this capability exists.

Which threat is nearer

If there is one practical conclusion to draw, it is this: the near-term, documented risk to the service is level two, not level three. Disrupting the link, and restricting access to terminals on the ground, are both cheaper and have a track record. Physically destroying a constellation is a costly, high-risk scenario that has so far stayed at the level of a concept.

What this means for users in Iran

First, this report is not a reason to worry about losing Starlink. Taking down a constellation of thousands is neither simple, nor cheap, nor free of consequences for whoever does it.

Second, what could actually affect the quality of your connection is the level-two kind of thing. That category has a track record, and for anyone relying on this connection it matters more than orbital scenarios.

Third, the thing we have always said, which this report does not change: Starlink does not make you invisible and it does not reduce your risk to zero. The signal is detectable and the dish is visible from outside.

In closing

The documents show this has been on the table for years and discussed seriously. That is news in itself. But the distance between a slide at a forum and a weapon that works is exactly the distance no document in this investigation crosses.

Sources

The three outlets’ joint investigation: The Insider

Other coverage of the same investigation: Kyiv Post · Ars Technica

Cover image: NASA visualisation of tracked objects in low Earth orbit, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.