Chinese citizens slam Musk online after he misses near space station

The satellites of Starlink Internet Services, a division of Musk’s SpaceX aerospace company, had two “close encounters” with the Chinese space station on July 1 and October 21, according to a document submitted by China to the UN space agency earlier this month. Had happened.

“For security reasons, the China Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance controls,” China said in a document published on the website of the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs.

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

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

About 30,000 satellites and other debris are believed to be orbiting the planet, with scientists urging governments to share data to reduce the risk of catastrophic space collisions.

SpaceX alone has deployed about 1,900 satellites to service its Starlink broadband network, and is planning more.

A user named Chen Haiying said on Weibo, “Starlink’s risks are slowly unfolding, the whole human race will pay for its business activities.”

The US space agency NASA was suddenly forced to call off a spacewalk in late November, citing risks posed by space debris. Musk tweeted in response that some Starlink satellite orbits were adjusted to reduce the chance of a collision.

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 well-known figure in China, although Tesla’s electric-vehicle business has come under increasing scrutiny from regulators, especially after a customer climbed atop a Tesla car at the Shanghai Auto Show in April to protest poor customer service.