Recently, Musk, who was once a "poetic hero", did an indecent thing.
His SpaceX satellite, Starlink, approached the Chinese space station twice in July and October. At that time, Chinese astronauts were on a mission inside the station, and for safety reasons, the space station had to avoid collisions twice.
You know, in the vast universe, if the space station collides with an object with a diameter of more than 10cm, it may be damaged, not to mention such a large satellite! If they do collide, both could disintegrate. Musk argues that "space is big, satellites are small", implying that passing by is just an accident. But who believes this nonsense?
"Starlink" satellite (Image source: SpaceX)
One
What are starlink satellites?
In 2014, Musk proposed the "Starlink" plan, which tried to build a satellite Internet covering the whole world. According to this plan, Musk will launch 42,000 satellites into space, and if the plan can be achieved, it will be SpaceX's most profitable project.
Musk estimates that if this thing can win 5% of the global communications market, it can earn $50 billion a year. Considering that Tesla spent so much effort to make Musk more than $30 billion last year, this "StarLink" project can be described as golden.
In the past seven years, the "Starlink" program has launched nearly 2,000 satellites. The European Space Agency has been clamoring for SpaceX to take good care of these "little guys" in heaven, because they have become "bear children" in outer space.
In 2019, SpaceX said that it would try the "Starlink" satellite "automatic de-orbiting technology", as a result, a satellite flew randomly, almost crashing the European Space Agency's "Fengshen" meteorological satellite; in April this year, another "Starlink" satellite almost crashed into the Communications Satellite of the British OneWeb Company...
Over the years, the Starlink program has led to a steady rise in close encounters. Hugh Lewis, a space debris expert at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, found that since the first launch of the Starlink satellite, the number of spacecraft approach events collected in the database has more than doubled, and half of them are related to the "Starlink". If SpaceX had sent all 12,000 satellites of the first generation into space, 90 percent of close-up encounters in space would have arisen as a result of the Starlink satellites.
Despite the dangers, SpaceX insists that its satellites have an automatic collision avoidance system. But even if automatic collision avoidance comes into effect, satellites may enter the orbit of other satellites. Just like driving on the road, you urgently change lanes, and it is not possible to rear-end other vehicles!
The Starlink satellite nearly collided with the European Space Agency's Fengshen Earth observation satellite. Source: European Space Agency
Two
To tell the truth, the current development of outer space is almost disorderly, and the existing written treaties of international law are only a few documents such as the Outer Space Treaty, the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Convention on International Responsibility, the Registration Convention and the Moon Agreement.
The document delineates some major principles for human exploration of outer space, such as no declaration of sovereignty, free flying, all countries should be rescued by all countries after the shipwrecked astronauts fall back to the earth, countries must declare and register the launch of spacecraft, and the spacecraft falling back to the earth to cause damage to compensation, and so on.
As for "how national satellites fly", the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) under the United Nations has technical regulations such as the Convention and the Constitution to coordinate the application and allocation of satellite orbit and radio band resources by countries.
However, these regulations only state that "all countries should use orbital resources equally, reasonably and cost-effectively, and adopt effective interference control mechanisms to make full use of electromagnetic frequencies and orbital resources", and as for things like the "Starlink" satellite flying around to threaten others, the regulations do not clearly stipulate.
This is problematic. Although the international convention stipulates that the satellite owner state should pay for the losses caused by its own "satellite flight", complex issues such as "how to compensate" and "how to define the relationship between the actual owner entity and the sovereign responsibility of the State" are still unclear.
How can it be possible to guarantee the landing of compensation by giving only one principle? What's more, if it really causes collision disasters and personnel injuries, can compensation be solved? How expensive is a national space station, how precious is the life of an astronaut, and a simple sentence of "I will lose money for an accident" can turn the page?
What's more, the flying of satellites is not just a corporate act, it also means war to some extent.
I think that at the peak of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the United States orchestrated the "Star Wars" plan, but it did not think about how to kill the satellites of its opponents in outer space. The Soviet Union also confronted each other and experimented with many anti-satellite methods, including using its own suicide satellites to crash into the other side's more important reconnaissance satellites, missile early warning satellites and communication relay satellites.
Today, SpaceX has let the satellite slip from its 555-kilometer orbit to the 370-kilometer orbit of the space station, and run back without a word. What do these means?
What's more, SpaceX has close ties to the U.S. military. This year, musk's Falcon 9 rocket launched a number of military signal intelligence satellites. In June, the Falcon 9 rocket also launched the U.S. Space Force's GPS III-05 Neil Armstrong navigation satellite.
It is no wonder that the "Starlink" satellite has approached the Chinese space station twice, and it is believed that the US military has quietly tested space warfare technology under the cover of corporate behavior. Whether this is the case or not, we do not make a guess, but the issue of threatening the safety of the Chinese space station and the lives of astronauts, China must make a statement.
SpaceX took advantage of the "regulatory vacuum" of space to develop brutally, which has become a major hidden danger in outer space. European Space Agency Director Aschbach warned earlier this month that Musk alone owns nearly half of the world's active satellites and that he was "setting the rules" and that the rest of the world needed to react as quickly as possible.
But interestingly, even if its own SpaceX company frequently causes trouble, the US government still turns a blind eye, and even in October 2019, it quietly ran to the ITU to help Musk apply for orbital resources of 30,000 satellites!
Please, it's not 2,000 yet, I've caused so much trouble, and then 30,000? What will outer space look like?
On December 28, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the United States claims the concept of so-called "responsible outer space behavior" while ignoring its obligations under international treaties in outer space, posing a serious threat to the lives and safety of Chinese astronauts, which is a typical double standard.
Whether it is the official war plan or the use of the company's name to engage in porcelain, the United States wants to engage in hegemonism in outer space, that is absolutely not OK!
Text/Senri Rock
Source/"Chickasaw Island" WeChat public account
Source: Overseas Network