China Appeals To UN Saying Elon Musk's Satellites Are Putting Chinese Spacecraft In Danger

China has appealed to the United Nations to remind the United States of its responsibilities to keep space safe after several near misses involving Chinese satellites and satellites launched by SpaceX, the private space business owned by Elon Musk.

China says that on at least two occasions over the last year, a SpaceX flight has come within striking distance of Chinese orbiters. In one incident, China says that Musk's Starlink satellites almost crashed into China's Tiangong space station. China also says that the space station had to make preventative moves to prevent disaster.

The United Nations regards space as an area without national jurisdiction which should be used only for peaceful actions.

Chinese social media has been flooded with complaints about Musk, but whether this online activity is organic or directed by Chinese authorities is unclear. One commentator said:

"How ironic that Chinese people buy Tesla, contributing large sums of money so Musk can launch Starlink, and then he [nearly] crashes into China's space station."

Others called for Tesla to be boycotted in favour of Chinese owned electric vehicle manufacturers.

SpaceX has launched over 6,000 satellites in recent years and is allowed to launch as many as 12,000 in total. Such large volumes of satellites being launched and then orbiting in space make it even more likely that there will be an accidental collision, or that one of the satellites will malfunction in a manner that is dangerous for those on the ground or in space.

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics stated to the Guardian newspaper that the demands from China were unusual but that collisions in space were not. He also stated that Chinese satellites have in recent years come close to colliding with Western space orbiters. He said:

"It is also fair to say that the US space station has several times over the past 10 years had to dodge pieces from the Chinese military anti-satellite test of 2007. It's not like the Chinese had a clean record here. The biggest debris event ever was the Chinese anti-satellite test."

[Based on reporting by: The Independent]