Amid rising tensions with China, Taiwan wants to reduce its reliance on undersea cables prone to sabotage. But it don't trust Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite internet, either. Now it's trying to build its own satellite network.
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00:00First, a crash course on satellites.
00:03They come in many sizes these days, sent into space on rockets
00:07that launch them into different orbits for different functions.
00:11Elon Musk's Starlink operates in lower Earth orbit
00:14to provide space-based internet connections.
00:17It dominates the field, with more than 7,000 satellites
00:21circling the globe in a constellation.
00:24Europe's UTELSAT is the second biggest space internet operator,
00:28but with just over 600 satellites, it doesn't even come close.
00:33This means that in times of crisis, Starlink can call the shots,
00:37and it does in parts of Ukraine.
00:40You can see here where the operator has restricted use
00:43particularly along the front line and areas occupied by Russian forces.
00:48And this? This is what no country wants, to lose control.
00:53Satellite internet services are extra important in wartime,
00:59especially here in Taiwan, where recently some of the undersea cables
01:04apparently got sabotaged most likely by China.
01:07We're here at Tron Future, a Taiwanese defense startup,
01:11and they told us that they can't show us that much
01:14because so much of it is top secret.
01:16But let's see what they have to say.
01:18Tron Future is part of a coordinated effort
01:23to make this island more satellite self-reliant.
01:27So tell us about what this is.
01:30Okay, this is some of the early product we developed for TASA.
01:35For the space agency.
01:36For the space agency.
01:37Yeah.
01:38So for TASA, Taiwan Space Agency.
01:39So this is already called a downlink transmitter.
01:44This is a payload.
01:45It's just part of the satellite.
01:47For this particular case, it's a communication system.
01:55Is it possible to get China out of the entire supply chain
02:00when it comes to something like satellite technology?
02:02Yes.
02:03From day one, there was no Chinese parts within our products basically.
02:09What's your capacity like right now?
02:11If suddenly you got an order for a thousand parts of something critical in a satellite,
02:16would you be able to do that or ten thousand?
02:18We will be able to produce a few hundred of this per month this year basically.
02:25William Yang is with the International Crisis Group.
02:28He says Taiwan is at the infancy stage of capabilities.
02:33They have been making a lot of progress in recent years.
02:36But when it comes to sophistication, I think we are still definitely not entirely there yet.
02:42Companies such as Europe's UTELSAT offer Taiwan an interim solution for lower-Earth orbit services.
02:49With some analysts saying Beijing might invade as soon as 2027,
02:52there's no time to waste in setting up non-Starlink alternatives.
02:57One key reason for Taiwan to work on diversifying its satellite provider
03:04is because of the potential vulnerability of relying on one sole provider
03:11who may have a conflict of interest with their other business interest in China.
03:19With just one satellite of its own so far, Taiwan has its work cut out.
03:24Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shown the world how much modern warfare relies on not just what's happening on the ground,
03:31but what's happening up above.
03:33This video shows the satellites passing over China and Taiwan at any given moment.
03:39Pull out and you get a sense of just how many there are and how daunting the challenge is for countries at a disadvantage.
03:46A fact that has propelled many governments, not just Taiwan's, to get going in this satellite space race.
03:53The satellite space race.
03:54The satellite space race.
03:55The satellite space race.