According to Beijing, the country’s space station had two “near encounters” with Starlink satellites this year. The instances that prompted the accusations, filed with the United Nations’ space agency, have yet to be independently confirmed. Mr. Musk SpaceX operates the Starlink satellite internet network.
Mr. Musk is well-known in China, even though his electric vehicle company, Tesla, is under increasing regulatory investigation. According to a paper presented by China this month to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the events happened on 1 July and 21 October. “The China Space Station adopted preemptive collision avoidance control for safety considerations,” Beijing stated in a paper posted on the agency’s website. SpaceX did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
Following the publication of the lawsuit, Mr. Musk, Starlink, and the United States were strongly chastised on China’s Twitter-like Weibo microblogging network.
Others claimed that the satellites are “American space warfare weapons” and that “Musk is a new ‘weapon’ manufactured by the US government and military.” Another user stated, “The hazards of Starlink are increasingly being disclosed, and the entire human species will suffer for their economic practises.”
China also accused the US of endangering astronauts by failing to meet its commitments under international space accords. According to Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhao Lijian, China asks the US to behave properly.
Scientists have expressed alarm about the dangers of space collisions and urged global governments to exchange information about the estimated 30,000 satellites and other space junk orbiting Earth. SpaceX has already launched about 1,900 satellites as part of the Starlink network, with thousands more on the way.
Nasa, the United States space agency, suddenly postponed a spacewalk from the International Space Station last month due to worries about space debris.
