China has filed a complaint with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs about Starlink Internet satellites developed by US SpaceX.
In their address, representatives of the PRC mention two episodes that occurred on July 1 and October 21 this year, during which Starlink vehicles allegedly flew dangerously close to the Chinese Tiangong space station. The latter was forced to take evasive measures to avoid a collision, the document says.
According to Reuters, after that, SpaceX was criticized by users of the Chinese social network Weibo, who called the company’s satellites “a pile of space debris” and “American space weapons.”
Construction of the Chinese space station began in April 2021. In June, the Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft was launched to the new orbital station with three astronauts on board, who became its first crew and at the same time builders. The station is expected to be completed by the end of 2022 after four manned missions.
Starlink is a global satellite system that has been developed since 2015 by SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk. It is designed to ensure the operation of high-speed broadband Internet in those regions of the planet where it is unreliable, expensive or unavailable.
There are currently over 1,750 active Starlink satellites in orbit. Their services are used by over 140,000 users in more than 20 countries around the world. In total, SpaceX plans to launch about 42,000 satellites.
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