The world's richest man has found himself on the wrong foot with China. Photo / AP
Billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk has found himself in hot water with China after his satellites strayed a little too close to the superpower's space station orbiting Earth.
Chinese state media took the world's richest man to task over two separate incidents occurring in July and October, where SpaceX satellites drifted dangerously close to China's space station. In a note filed with the UN's space agency in December, critics claimed the SpaceX vessel had potential to put the "life or health of astronauts" on board in danger.
"For safety reasons, the China Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance control," Chinese representatives said.
The small satellites involved in the alleged incidents were among nearly 2,000 launched by SpaceX's Starlink internet Services division. The hi-tech service casts internet to customers in remote areas who have limited access to traditional internet service providers.
State media outlet The South China Morning Post reported Chinese officials asked the UN to remind nations that under an international agreement called the Outer Space Treaty, US-launched satellites "bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities".
The Global Times also took aim at Musk, claiming SpaceX could be attempting to feel out the superpower's "capacity" in space.
"We can't rule out the possibility that the move is intended to test China's capacity in space to check whether China can accurately grasp the satellites' actions," aerospace science expert Huang Zhicheng told the outlet.
Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre Jonathan McDowell said the issue of dealing with collisions in space wasn't as rare as most people realise, revealing the US station has been forced to make evasive manoeuvres to dodge space junk, which he says often comes from Chinese programmes.
He said China doesn't have a "clean record" when it comes to the matter, which he believes has marked a "new era in space" for world governments.
"It is also fair to say that the US space station has several times over the past 10 years had to dodge pieces from the Chinese military anti-satellite test of 2007," McDowell said via the Guardian.
"It's not like the Chinese had a clean record here. The biggest debris event ever was the Chinese anti-satellite test.
"There's more debris and there's more active satellites. Things are just getting a lot busier and a lot more crowded up there. It's a commercially dominated space age … where we're stressing the space environment for the first time."
The controversy came after Musk's other flagship company Tesla also came under fire in China in April when a disgruntled customer staged a protest over the safety of the company's electric cars. Tesla later apologised to the customer after the fracas was shared heavily on social media.
As Tesla has sought to push into the Chinese market in recent years, Musk has heaped praise on the country despite tensions with the US. But back in 2015, the Tesla CEO was more blunt about China posing a threat to his ambitions in space.
Speaking about a hypothetical situation in which SpaceX's Starlink satellites beamed uncensored internet into China, Musk boldly noted the Chinese government could shoot down his satellites.
"If they get upset with us, they can blow our satellites up, which wouldn't be good," Musk said. "China can do that. So probably we shouldn't broadcast there."
SpaceX carried out its 27th mission this year in early December, launching nearly 50 Starlink satellites into orbit.
Musk's revolutionary space company has now launched more carrier rockets in 2021 than any previous year.
In April, a "UFO" narrowly missed a SpaceX rocket on its way to the Space Station – just hours before the astronauts on board were told to brace for a crash in a second near-miss.
The "space debris" could be seen flying past the shuttle just 12 minutes into its mission, but six hours later, the four astronauts on board were told to buckle up when a second unknown object hurtled towards them.
The announcement came 20 minutes before the possible collision, forcing the crew to strap into their seats, with no time to perform an avoidance manoeuvre.
Instead, the astronauts on board SpaceX's recycled Crew Dragon capsule, the Endeavour, were told to put on their pressurised suits.
"The NASA/SpaceX team was informed of the possible conjunction by US Space Command," NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said. "The object being tracked is classified as 'unknown'.
"The possibility of the conjunction came so close to the closest approach time that there wasn't time to compute and execute a debris avoidance manoeuvre with confidence, so the SpaceX team elected to have the crew don their pressure suits out of an abundance of caution."