Recently, the news that the Chinese space station has twice urgently avoided the "Starlink" satellite has attracted widespread attention. On December 3, the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna informed the United Nations that the Starlink satellite launched by the US Space Exploration Technology Corporation (SpaceX) has approached the Chinese space station twice this year, posing a threat to the lives and health of astronauts on the Chinese space station.
SpaceX has launched nearly 2,000 Starlink satellites and plans to deploy tens of thousands more
Coincidentally, the European Space Agency has also recently issued warnings and accusations against SpaceX's starlink satellites, saying that it occupies too much space in earth orbit and crowds out competitors. In response, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in an interview Wednesday that he denied claims that his company SpaceX's Starlink satellites take up too much space in Earth orbit, saying that space in Earth's orbit is large enough to accommodate "tens of billions" of satellites.
Joseph Ashbach, head of the European Space Agency, warned SpaceX that its rush to launch thousands of "starlink" communications satellites would lead to fewer radio waves and less space available to competitors in low-Earth orbit. He argues that Musk "sets the rules" in commercial space, crowding out other potential competitors.
"The Earth's space orbit is very large, and the satellites are very small." Musk said in an interview, "A few thousand satellites is nothing. It's like having thousands of cars on the planet, and that's fine. ”
Musk said that the "StarLink" satellite Internet system can provide networking services for anywhere outside the base
Some experts believe musk is too "flippant" comparing the density of satellites in Earth's orbit to cars on the ground. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said spacecraft need to have larger distance spacing than car collisions to adjust their orbits in time to avoid collisions. In addition, calculating the trajectories of different satellites is difficult, and weather changes can also affect satellite trajectories, so potential collisions can only be identified at very close distances.
Other experts also say that the spacecraft do need greater distances to avoid collisions. Scientists worry about the increased risk of space collisions as satellites launch, and call on governments around the world to share information about about the fragments of about 30,000 satellites and other vehicles orbiting the Earth. SpaceX claims that the satellites it launches are equipped with autonomous collision avoidance technology and insists that other spacecraft do not need to take action to evade them.
SpaceX has reportedly launched more than 1,700 Starlink satellites into Earth-orbiting space, and the company plans to deploy a total of more than 40,000 satellites in the future to provide high-speed Internet access services covering the world.
Source: Red Star News