Satellites endanger space station: Musk turns the Chinese against him

Satellites endanger the space station
Musk turns the Chinese against him

Tesla boss Elon Musk is actually very popular in China. But now he is coming under criticism for his space company SpaceX. A few months ago, two of Musk’s satellites nearly collided with a Chinese space station. Internet users are now calling for a boycott.

US billionaire Elon Musk has fallen out of favor with Chinese Internet users because of two incidents involving satellites from his space company SpaceX. Calls for boycotts against Musk’s electric car maker Tesla and calls for sanctions were shared millions of times across China’s internet services today. According to Beijing, the Chinese “Tiangong” space station had to change course twice because satellites of the SpaceX Starlink program were on a collision course with it.

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The incidents therefore occurred in July and October. “The maneuvering strategy was unknown and the errors in the orbit were difficult to assess,” said Beijing about the incident in October. Measures have been taken to “ensure the safety and life of the astronauts in orbit”. A collision with the space station would likely have “completely destroyed” it and killed everyone on board, said astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

There was great outrage over the incidents on Chinese online services. “How ironic that the Chinese should buy Tesla and throw in large sums of money so Musk can start Starlink, and then he falls [fast] in China’s space station, “commented one user.” Prepare to boycott Tesla, “wrote another. Some users speculated that the US government would have imposed sanctions if a Chinese company had threatened a US space station.” Why aren’t we just doing what they would do? “one wrote.

Tesla’s reputation is suffering

The “Tiangong” (“Heavenly Palace”) space station was brought into space this year and should be fully functional in the course of the coming year. China has an ambitious space program. The country has already sent a rover to Mars and probes to the moon.

SpaceX’s Starlink operates more than 1,700 satellites. The aim of the program is to give large parts of the world access to the Internet. “Since Starlink has been in operation, we’ve seen an increase in the number of close flybys,” said astrophysicist McDowell. Evasive maneuvers in the near-earth orbits would, however, generally become more and more necessary because more and more objects are crowding there.

Musk is admired by many in China. Tesla sells one in four of its vehicles in the Chinese market. The US manufacturer is one of the few foreign companies that operates a wholly owned plant in Shanghai. Most recently, however, Tesla’s reputation had suffered as a result of multiple accidents, scandals and problems with data storage.

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