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Astronaut Tang Hongbo of the Shenzhou-12 mission works inside the core module of China’s Tianhe space station on August 20, 2021. Photo/REUTERS
Beijing claims its space station had to take evasive action to evade the Starlink satellites on two occasions this year. Starlink is a satellite launched by SpaceX, the company founded by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
The complaint was filed with the United Nations earlier this month. China accused the Starlink satellite in April of descending from its regular orbit of 555 kilometers above the earth to 382 kilometers, close to the China Space Station’s (CSS) orbit of about 390 kilometers.
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This orbital change allows for a collision to occur. Beijing said, “The CSS crew was forced to perform evasive maneuvers to avoid this possibility.”
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The second incident occurred in October. Once again, the Chinese CSS crew took action to evade the Starlink satellite, which the report said was “maneuvering constantly,” following an “unknown” strategy.
“The satellites can pose a danger to the life or health of astronauts,” said a statement from the Chinese delegation at the United Nations, reported by RT.com on Monday (12/27/2021).
SpaceX already has an agreement with NASA to launch its satellite into a five-kilometer orbit from a US space agency or International Space Station (ISS) craft, which circles the earth approximately 20 kilometers above the CSS.
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