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.
The US military's Vandenberg Space Force Base, which monitors space traffic
and attempts to track potential collisions, did not respond to a request for
comment about the UNOOSA report.
A space traffic problem
People across the United States are already using the new Starlink network,
and it's rapidly expanding across the globe as SpaceX launches more Starlink
satellites and expands its service into new countries.
SpaceX's Starlink constellation already includes roughly 2,000 satellites,
and it promises to far surpass that amount.
But that satellite constellation, other similar planned projects and
increasing commercial and government activity in space has contributed to a
growing problem: how to manage traffic in space.
Near-misses between objects in space happen all the time. And the apparent
close calls documented in China's report to the UN may be symptoms of a
larger problem plaguing space-faring nations: There is not a perfect,
international solution for tracking and coordinating objects in space.
Concerns about potential collisions will likely keep growing, and activities
in space will become more dangerous as humans launch more objects into
orbit.
It should also be noted that Russia and China have conducted anti-satellite,
or ASAT, military tests that have essentially blown up satellites in orbit
and created massive plumes of debris in space. That debris whips
uncontrollably through orbit, threatening any spacecraft, space station or
satellite that might cross the debris field's path.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, pointed out that the International Space Station has had to
maneuver out of the way of debris created by China's 2007 ASAT test several
times in recent years.
In other words: Every party involved shares a bit of the fault for how
crowded Earth's orbit has become.
"This is another symptom that we're in a new era — a new space age that is
both much busier much tenser," McDowell told CNN Business.
It's not clear whether the Starlink satellites mentioned in the UN report
attempted to move out of the way of China's space station on their own.
During October's close encounter, according to China, the satellite's
"maneuver strategy was unknown and orbital errors were hard to be assessed,"
prompting the space station to evade the satellite and "avoid a potential
collision."
The Starlink website, though, says that autonomous collision avoidance
technology is embedded into its satellites, allowing them to automatically
duck out of the way if they detect a potential crash with an oncoming piece
of space junk, a space station or any other space-faring object.
McDowell told CNN Business that based on his data, the Starlink satellite
that made a close approach to China's space station in July made a slight
adjustment to its path that could indicate the autonomous system was
working.
But he added that those systems are hardly effective if there's not more
coordination.
"If I'm in China — even if I know that SpaceX has an autonomous system — I
don't know that it's going to work this time," he said. "I don't know if
it's switched on."
Musk's reputation in China
The controversy could hurt Musk's reputation in China.
Musk spent years winning over authorities and Chinese citizens alike as his
electric carmaker Tesla made inroads where other foreign firms could not.
Tesla (TSLA) was the only foreign manufacturer without a local partner to
win a big tax break for its cars in 2019, and Musk famously danced on stage
during the debut of the Shanghai-made Model 3 early last year, which went
viral on Weibo. Premier Li Keqiang once even said he would be happy to give
Musk a "China green card" after the American entrepreneur said he "loves
China very much."
But Musk's reception in the country has been damaged over the last year by a
run of bad publicity, including a recall of virtually all of the Tesla cars
that have been built in Shanghai. The company also faced protests by Telsa
owners at this year's Shanghai auto show over poor car quality and various
safety concerns flagged by Chinese regulators.
Musk, who has long shown an affinity for Chinese culture, has in the
meantime been on a monthslong charm offensive.
In July, he applauded the government on the 100th anniversary for the ruling
Chinese Communist Party, tweeting: "The economic prosperity that China has
achieved is truly amazing, especially in infrastructure! I encourage people
to visit and see for themselves."
That came months after the world's richest man appeared for a rare interview
with a Chinese state broadcaster, heaping praise on Beijing and saying that
China would "become the biggest economy in the world." Musk has also
predicted that the country will eventually become Tesla's most important
market.
And his many utterances have often created buzz within the country. In
November, Musk cryptically tweeted an ancient Chinese poem that is famous in
the country, and which refers to a spat between brothers. It swiftly became
a trending topic on Weibo.