The “Independent” newspaper reported that China has expressed to the United Nations its deep concern about the rapid expansion of Elon Musk’s “Starlink” satellite network in low Earth orbit, due to the potential threats it poses to global safety and security.
During an informal event of the UN Security Council, a Chinese representative stated: “With the rapid expansion of commercial space activities, the uncontrolled proliferation of commercial satellite networks by a certain country, in the absence of effective regulation, has led to serious challenges related to safety and security.”
The Beijing representative pointed to a number of incidents, including those in which “Starlink” satellites nearly collided with the Chinese space station in 2021.
The “South China Morning Post” quoted the representative as saying, referring to SpaceX’s “Starlink” satellites: “Such constellations are crowding orbital frequency resources (data shared by all satellites in orbit for communications) and greatly increasing the risk of collisions.”
Several recent studies have also warned that the probability of satellites colliding with each other is increasing rapidly with the accelerating growth in the number of satellites in orbit, especially with the presence of huge constellations such as those of “Starlink” owned by “SpaceX”.
Currently, there are about 8,500 satellites out of 12,955 active satellites in low Earth orbit, and just over 66% of them are part of the “Starlink” constellation owned by “SpaceX”. Elon Musk, CEO of “SpaceX,” has announced that the “Starlink” constellation may eventually include more than 42,000 satellites, noting that the company “currently has authorization to launch 12,000 satellites.”
Each of these satellites is designed to operate for five years before being deliberately burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Meanwhile, China plans to launch huge clusters of internet satellites of its own to compete with “SpaceX.”
The state-backed Shanghai project aims to produce and launch more than 15,000 satellites by 2030, with the aim of providing global coverage for ultra-fast internet.
