Elon Musk criticised on Chinese social media over risk of 'collision' between Starlink satellites and space station

 

Elon Musk been criticized on social media after China complains that its space station was forced to avoid collisions with satellites launched by its Starlink Internet Services project.

China submitted a document earlier this month to the UN's space agency saying that satellites from the Starlink division of Mr Musk's SpaceX  company had two "close encounters" with the Chinese space station on 1 July and 21 October

The incidents behind the complaints filed with the UN space agency have yet to be independently verified.

Starlink is a satellite Internet network owned by Elon Musk SpaceX.

Elon Musk is known in China, even though his Tesla electric car manufacturer has a growing review of regulatory authorities.

Starlink and the US have been heavily criticized on China's Weibo microblogging platform Twitter.

As news of the filing spread, users of the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo piled on, with one user saying Starlink satellites were "just a heap of space junk" and another describing them as "American space warfare weapons".

"The risks of Starlink are being gradually exposed, the whole human race will pay for their business activities."

China also accused the United States to bring astronauts in danger by ignoring obligations under the spaces' contracts.

The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, Lijian, said that China requested the United States to act responsibly.

Scientists have voiced worries about the dangers of collisions in space and referred to as on global governments to percentage statistics about the predicted 30,000 satellites and different area particles which can be orbiting Earth.

SpaceX has already launched nearly 1,900 satellites as a part of the Starlink network, and plans to install thousands more.

Last month, the US space agency Nasa abruptly postponed a space walk from the International Space Station due to concerns about space debris.

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