Starlink constellation radiation makes stealth target glow on Chinese military radars.

Stealth technology helps the military avoid detection of aircraft but the Chinese look like have found a method to see them on radars.

An experiment conducted by a team of Chinese scientists in the South China Sea reveals that stealth objects can be detected by using the radiation of the Starlink constellation of satellites.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that the scientists launched last summer a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone – about the size of a bird and with a radar cross-section comparable to that of a stealth fighter – off the coast of Guangdong. Using a ground-based radar system, the team spotted the tiny drone thanks to the radiation emitted by a Starlink satellite, which was flying over the Philippines at the time.

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The drone was designed to be less visible to radars and to reflect electromagnetic radiation better thanks to its unconventional – three-dimensional – shape and special material, and yet this fact played no role in proving the detection method, the team claimed in a paper published in August in the Journal of Signal Processing [no link available though].

When an aircraft passes between a satellite and an antenna back on the ground, the SCMP report says, it can scatter the satellite's electromagnetic waves that can be picked up by ground-based radar to identify targets.

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Thanks to thousands of Starlink satellites Space X has launched on the Earth’s low orbit until now, Chinese military communications could use disturbances in the high-frequency radio signals to track stealth aircraft.

The discovery, if it stands validation, could give the Chinese military an edge on the battlefield and change the game of future warfare.

There are over 2.8x1.4-meter 7,000 Starlink satellites in the low Earth orbit and billionaire Elon Musk, Starlink’s and Space X’s owner, plans to launch 12,000 more in the near future. They provide coverage for at least 100 countries.

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