Elon Musk’s rocky year in China is ending on another sour note.
The tech billionaire’s SpaceX satellites are catching heat in the country after Beijing complained that two satellites launched by the American aerospace manufacturer endangered Chinese astronauts. In a report sent earlier this month to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, China claimed that two SpaceX satellites flew too close to the country’s space station this year, forcing the station to make evasive maneuvers to avoid collision. The two encounters “constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station,” according to the report, which said the incidents happened in July and October. China filed its complaint to the UN early this month. But the episodes didn’t gain widespread attention in the country until this week. Chinese State media scrutinized the incidents, which involved satellites that are part of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation — a project that promises to beam high-speed internet across the entire planet. The Global Times, a state-run tabloid, cited an expert Monday who speculated that SpaceX may have been “trying to test China’s capability and response awareness in space.” The topic also attracted some 90 million views on Weibo, a Twitter-like social media service in China. Users criticized the “US Starlink satellites.” One person decried the network as a “rogue project” and a “kind of monopoly in the space race.” Another accused the United States of ” provoking trouble.” Asked about the incident on Tuesday, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the United States to “take immediate measures to prevent such incidents from happening again.” “It is a typical double standard for the US to proclaim the concept of ‘responsible conduct in outer space’ while ignoring its obligations under international treaties on outer space and posing a grave threat to the lives and safety of astronauts,” Zhao Lijian told reporters. SpaceX did not respond to a request from CNN Business for comment about the document that China filed with the UN, nor to questions about whether the company was able to communicate with Chinese authorities during the incidents. The UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs did not immediately respond to a request from CNN Business for comment. In its report, China asked UN Secretary-General António Guterres to remind countries of the organization’s treaty governing outer space activity.
