Satellites - Single Point of Failure

One of the worst things you can have in combat is a single point of failure;  a linchpin upon which an entire operation depends.  If it fails, you lose everything.  For example, let’s imagine a ship has several types of sensors and all are operated off electrical power that ultimately passes through a single cable.  That cable would represent a single point of failure.  Sever the cable and all the sensor systems would be rendered inoperative by a single component’s failure.  We have seen examples in industry and the military where supposedly redundant, independent systems have failed because of an unrecognized single point of failure.  In our example, we might be tempted to proudly proclaim that we have set up multiple independent sensor systems.  After all, they’re physically separated.  They use different frequencies.  They each have their own cooling systems.  Those that need motors each have their own.  Completely independent;  nothing in common ...  except for the single power cable that no one thought about and did not recognize as a single point of failure.
 
Our military is currently constructing a single point of failure on a very large scale in the form of satellite communications.  Consider the vast number of systems that all depend on satellite communications:  drones, weapons, command and control, sensors, and on and on.  If we lose satellite communications, we lose … well … a huge chunk of our entire military capability.
 
You might be tempted to argue that satellite communications are not a single point of failure because we have dozens/hundreds/thousands of satellites and no enemy could possibly eliminate all of them.  Setting aside the highly debatable nature of that assertion, think, what do all satellites have in common?  That’s right, a very small number of control/communication stations … approaching a single point of failure.  It doesn’t matter how many satellites you have if they all depend on a very few control stations.
 
Think further, what do all control stations have in common?  An even smaller number of software programs that run them.  If an enemy can hack/virus the software (we’ve seen that it’s almost impossible to prevent hacking of military or commercial networks and programs), it instantly renders all the control stations and their associated satellites useless.
 
Well, none of that could ever happen, you say.  Except that already has and we have at least one public example.
 

A global outage across Elon Musk’s satellite network ​affecting millions of Starlink users had left two dozen unmanned surface vessels bobbing off the California coast, disrupting communications and halting operations for almost an hour.
 
The incident, which involved drones ‌intended to bolster U.S. military options in a conflict with China, was one of several Navy test disruptions linked to SpaceX's Starlink that left operators unable to connect with autonomous boats, according to internal Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter.[1]

Think even further.  What if a key individual (a single point of failure, by definition!) were to shut down or sabotage the entire satellite system, perhaps motivated by bribes/payoffs or coerced by Chinese threats against him or his family?  Couldn’t happen, you laugh?  How about this:
 

Reuters reported last year that [Elon] Musk unexpectedly switched off Starlink access to Ukrainian troops as they sought to retake territory from Russia, denting allies' trust in the billionaire.[1]

There you have a single (non-military!) individual shutting down a satellite system because he disagreed with the military and geopolitical actions.
 
Think further still.  The single point of failure doesn’t have to involve destruction of assets, cyber attacks, or rogue villains.  It could be as simple as routine mechanical/software failure.  Here’s an example.
 

In April 2025, during a series ​of Navy tests in California involving unmanned boats and flying drones, officials reported that Starlink struggled to provide a solid network connection due to the high data usage needed to control multiple systems, according to a Navy safety report of the tests reviewed by Reuters.[1]

Given the complexity of modern systems, sometimes you don’t even know why a system failed.
 

In the weeks leading up to the global Starlink outage in August, another ​series of Navy tests was disrupted by intermittent connection issues with the Starlink network, Navy documents reviewed by Reuters show. ​The causes of the network losses were not immediately clear.[1]

Now let’s close with one of the dumbest statements I’ve heard in a while, courtesy of Mr. Bryan Clark at the Hudson Institute.
 

Despite the setbacks, the upside of Starlink – a cheap and commercially available service – outweighs the risk of a potential outage disrupting future military operations, said Bryan Clark, an autonomous warfare expert at the Hudson Institute. “You ​accept those vulnerabilities because of the benefits you get from the ubiquity it provides,” he said.[1]

In peacetime you might accept the occasional failure because the downside isn’t all that serious.  It’s not life or death … just inconvenience.  In war, it most certainly is life and death and you can’t afford systems with known single points of failure and a known, not insignificant, failure rate to begin with.
 
 
Discussion
 
Given our overwhelming dependence on satellites, do you think the Chinese are going to allow us to continue to use them, unhindered?  Of course not!  They’ll attack them physically, electronically, digitally (software), and via human operator vulnerabilities.  Anyone want to bet that there aren’t Chinese agents embedded in the military or Starlink?  One way or another, I’d be very surprised if we have many operating satellites two weeks after the war starts.
 
We see that satellite communications could be disrupted in a variety of ways:  physical destruction, cyber attacks, software viruses, sabotage, and routine failure, among other methods.  Does it make sense that so much of our military, current and future, has, as its very foundation, satellite communications?  Would any sane individual purposely build a system with that many known, anticipatable vulnerabilities?  And yet we’re doing exactly that.  Worse, we’re increasing our use of, and dependence on, satellites instead of decreasing it.
 
Consider that the military, some years ago, recognized GPS as a significant vulnerability.  All of our navigation and most of our weapons depend on GPS.  GPS was recognized as a single point of failure and the military, to their slow and belated credit, has set about mitigating that dependence.  We’re now designing systems that use alternates to GPS.  We knew we couldn’t accept a single point of failure, like GPS, and yet we’re intentionally and enthusiastically embracing satellites as a single point of failure.  That’s baffling.
 
 
 
 
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[1]Reuters website, “Exclusive: Starlink outage hit drone tests, exposing Pentagon’s growing reliance on SpaceX”, David Jeans, 16-Apr-2026,
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/starlink-outage-hit-drone-tests-exposing-pentagons-growing-reliance-spacex-2026-04-16/