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Chinese citizen beat Elon Musk for almost missing the space station



A stream of Starlink satellites cuts across the night sky over Vladivostok, Russia. (Beautiful pictures)

BEIJING – Chinese citizens lashed out at billionaires online Tesla founder By Elon Musk space ambitions next Monday China complained that their space station was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision with a satellite launched by Musk’s Starlink program.

The satellites of Starlink Internet Services, a division of Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX, had two “close encounters” with the Chinese space station in July. first and October 21, according to a document submitted by China earlier this month to the United Nations space agency. China currently has a three-member crew on board.

“For safety reasons, the China Space Station has implemented collision prevention control,” China said in a document published on the website of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. .

The claims have not been independently verified. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a post on China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform Weibo on Monday, one user said Starlink’s satellites were “just a pile of space junk”, while another described them as “weapon… America’s space war.”

With nearly 30,000 satellites and other debris believed to be orbiting the planet, scientists have called on governments to share data to reduce the risk of catastrophic space collisions.

SpaceX alone has deployed nearly 1,900 satellites to service its Starlink broadband network, and is planning many more — perhaps 42,000 Starlink satellites in total. The concept has even been criticized as potentially damaging the view of the night sky from Earth.

“Starlink’s risks are gradually being exposed, all of humanity will pay the price for their business activities,” one user posted under the name Chen Haiying said on Weibo.

US space agency NASA was forced to abruptly halt its spacewalk in late November, citing the risk posed by space debris. Musk tweeted in response that some of the Starlink satellite orbits have been adjusted to reduce the possibility of collisions.

China began construction of the space station in April with the launch of Tianhe, the largest of its three modules. The station is expected to be completed by the end of 2022 after four crewed missions.

Musk has become a celebrity in China, even though Tesla’s electric vehicle business is under increasing scrutiny by regulators, especially after a customer climbed onto the roof of a Tesla. in Shanghai Auto Show in April to protest poor customer service.



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