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Updated 09:00 IST, December 28th 2021

China slams Elon Musk as SpaceX satellites had two 'close encounters' with Space Station

In a note to the United Nations, Beijing revealed that SpaceX satellites had two close encounters with China Space Station in the recent past.

Reported by: Bhavya Sukheja
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IMAGE: AP/PIXABAY | Image: self

In a note to the United Nations, Beijing revealed that SpaceX satellites had two close encounters with China's Space Station in the recent past. According to Global Times, China on Monday said that its space station was forced to take evasive action in a bid to avoid collision with American billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites. In the document submitted by China to the UN’s space agency, Beijing said that the satellites from Starlink Internet Services had two “close encounters” with the Chinese space station on July 1 and October 21. 

"For safety reasons, the China's Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance control," China said in a document published on the website of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.

Further, the Chinese authorities informed that the Starlink satellites descended to lower orbits, which could be to enhance the satellite’s regional communication capacity as the company also planned to launch a batch of satellites into an orbit of around 330km. In the note to the UN, China further noted that this year, Beijing completed five launch missions including the successful launch into orbit of the Tianhe core module of the China's Space Station, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2022 after four crewed missions.

“The space station is in a stable near-circular orbit at an altitude of around 390 kilometres on an orbital inclination of about 41.5 degrees,” it added.

Chinese citizens slam Elon Musk 

For now, SpaceX has not responded to China’s complaints. But the issue has sparked a backlash on China's Twitter-like Weibo microblogging platform, with one user saying that Starlink’s satellites were “just a pile of space junk”. Another person called Starlink “a rogue project”. "The risks of Starlink are being gradually exposed, the whole human race will pay for their business activities," a third user said under the name Chen Haiying on Weibo.

Meanwhile, it is to mention that with nearly 3,000 satellites and other debris believed to be orbiting the planet, scientists have repeatedly urged governments to share data to reduce the risk of space collisions. Musk's SpaceX alone has so far deployed nearly 1,900 satellites to serve its Starlink broadband network. Previously, US space agency NASA was also forced to call off a spacewalk at the end of November, citing risks posed by space debris. In response, Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted saying that some Starlink satellite orbits had been adjusted to reduce the possibility of collisions.

(Image: AP/Pixabay)

Published 09:00 IST, December 28th 2021