Stealth aircraft, whether Chinese, Russian or American, share technology that allows them to be “invisible”: a radar-absorbent coating, specific geometric shapes and angles that prevent radar waves from returning to the source, and an engine that reduces their “signature” so as not to give themselves away. This makes them almost undetectable… until now.
A team of scientists from Wuhan University, led by Yi Jianxin, claims that, using the radiation emitted by the Starlink satellite constellation from SpaceX, can detect enemy stealth fighter jets.
Jianxin team used a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone as a replacement for an airplane of this type for an experiment. Using a ground-based radar system, the team detected the small drone thanks to the radiation emitted by a Starlink satellite, which was flying over the Philippines at the time.
That’s despite the fact that stealth planes are designed to be less visible to radar and better reflect electromagnetic radiation thanks to their unusual shapes.
The team claims that their new detection method “not affected by the three-dimensional shape of the target and the surface material,” according to a study published in the Journal of Signal Processing.
That means the system could “provide significant advantages in detecting small and stealthy targets,” which would be a potential advantage for the Chinese military on the battlefield. This idea is that When an airplane passes between a satellite and an antenna on the ground, It can disperse electromagnetic waves from the satellite, waves that can be picked up by ground-based radar to identify targets.
Thanks to the More than 6 thousand Starlink satellites that SpaceX has launched so far, Jianxin’s team hopes to use disturbances in high-frequency radio signals to track stealth aircraft.
This is a surprising new avenue of research, especially given Chinese animosity toward the Elon Musk-led company’s broadband constellation. In 2022, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese researchers were developing ways to shoot down Starlink satellites if they ever became a threat to national security.
For now, the team has only tested its method on a drone that flew at relatively low altitudesand it remains to be seen whether Starlink radiation could reveal larger, harder-to-detect targets, such as stealth aircraft.