Power struggle in space: China threatens to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink
Elon Musk’s company Starlink, a subsidiary of his space company ‘Space X’, has provided the planet (except for the north and south poles) with broadband Internet since the beginning of August 2021, with over 1700 satellites orbiting the earth.
These satellites have become the focus of the Chinese. Scientists are calling for the Starlink satellites to be destroyed.
They say these pose a threat to China’s Tiangong space station. However, there are also concerns about Washington’s “weaponization” of the satellites.
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Last year, there was always trouble between the Chinese government and Starlink, which is part of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
That’s because Chinese scientists apparently had to steer the Tiangong space station repeatedly around the billionaire’s satellites to avoid a collision.
This went so far that Beijing officially filed a complaint with the United Nations last December.
The United States rejected China’s claim that the Starlink satellites had endangered the Chinese space station.
Washington said that if there had been a “significant probability of collision” with China’s space station, China would have been notified promptly.
“Because the activities did not meet the threshold of established criteria for emergency collisions, emergency notifications were not warranted in either case.”
Chinese military researchers are calling for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites to be destroyed. https://t.co/HcNjNlxUvP
NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) August 30, 2022
However, concerns about a collision between the Chinese space station and the Starlink satellites appear to be only a pretextual reason.
Chinese military scientists now stated that the Starlink satellites must be destroyed.
The problem, however, does not seem to be so much fear of collision as China believes Starlink could be used for military purposes, threatening China’s national security.
They wrote, “a combination of soft and hard kill methods should be used to make some Starlink satellites lose their functions and destroy the constellation’s operating system.”
"Apart from Russian efforts to disrupt and degrade SpaceX's Starlink terminals, China may also have similar designs," writes Zhanna Malekos Smith here: https://t.co/VIFf6ujQXx @CSIS_Tech, @CSISAerospace, @WestPoint_USMA
CSIS Defense and Security Department (@CSISDefense) August 30, 2022
According to the scientists, China should “vigorously develop countermeasures” against Starlink because such capabilities are necessary for China “to maintain and gain advantages in the hard space game.”
So basically, the main issue is dominance in low-Earth orbit. And Beijing successfully tested an anti-satellite missile in 2007 by destroying one of its inactive weather satellites.
That means the Chinese already have the technology to pulverize these satellites.
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