TAIWAN is plotting an Elon Musk-style 'army of satellites' to combat looming threats by China to bring the island offline.
Musk has taken Earth’s orbit by storm with a constellation of more than 3,300 satellites.
But the eccentric billionaire is not the only one ambitious enough to undertake such a feat.
Taiwan has tabled plans to mirror Musk’s satellite constellation as part of a mission to resist an internet and communication blackout should China escalate its war threats.
China has long claimed that Taiwan is part of its territory and has made increasingly militaristic threats over the past few months to bring the island under its control.
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The Taiwanese government is plotting 700 ground-level satellite receivers, according to a report by local news outlet CM Media.
The country’s space agency, known as TASA, wants to spearhead the effort – which is expected to take several years’ worth of planning.
Taiwan is currently in early stage talks with investors across the world in hopes of raising funds for the project, the Financial Times reported.
The looming threat from China has pushed Taiwan to begin preparing for the worst-case scenario.
Satellites in war
The island, less than a quarter of the size of the UK, has been trying to build communications infrastructure that could survive an attack by China.
It forms part of a project that was first thought up in 2019 but has been accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In September last year, Taiwan began setting up a backup internet connection over fears of a ‘cyber blackout’.
The plan had been inspired by Ukraine’s use of Starlink satellites during the war.
In the past six months, SpaceX-owned Starlink has been launching an average of 20 new satellites a week into orbit.
The satellite company handed over access to several satellites to Ukraine officials at the beginning of the war, to help the country navigate its communications shutdown.
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Ukrainian forces have used Starlink connection for successful drone strikes, encrypted messages between troops and keeping morale high among soldiers who can speak with loved ones.
“We look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how Starlink has been used very successfully,” Taiwan’s digital minister, Audrey Tang, told the Financial Times.
Tang added that Taiwan’s main concern is making sure its journalists can send videos to international viewers and that its government can make daily addresses, like Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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