Space, it's really...really big, and as a result of that, a lot of people are trying
to see what they can do in space in order to both expand our knowledge, reach other
worlds, and frankly...put a lot of crap in the atmosphere.
Seriously, look up how much "space junk" is up in Earth's atmosphere, it's a lot, and
it's depressing.
Ironically, that is the main focus of this video, because a couple of entities are fighting
online due to how their "space junk" almost collided with one another.
Allow us to show you how China HATES What Elon Musk Just Did with SpaceX!
3.
Collision Course Elon Musk faced a social media backlash after
China complained that its space station was forced to avoid collisions with satellites
launched by his Starlink Internet Services project.
The country's space station had two "close encounters" with Starlink satellites in 2020,
Beijing claimed.
The incidents behind the complaints, lodged with the UN's space agency, have not yet been
independently verified.
Starlink is a satellite internet network operated by Mr Musk's SpaceX.
Mr Musk is well known in China even as his electric carmaker Tesla comes under growing
scrutiny from regulators.
The incidents occurred on 1 July and 21 October, according to a document submitted by China
last month to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.
"For safety reasons, the China Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance
control," Beijing said in the document published on the agency's website.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from others about this.
After the complaint was made public, Mr Musk, Starlink and the US were heavily criticized
on China's Twitter-like Weibo microblogging platform.
The satellites are "American space warfare weapons" and "Musk is a new 'weapon' created
by the US government and military", others said.
Another posted: "The risks of Starlink are being gradually exposed, the whole human race
will pay for their business activities."
China also accused the US of putting astronauts in danger by ignoring obligations under outer
space treaties.
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said China was urging the US to act responsibly.
Scientists have voiced concerns about the risks of collisions in space and called on
world governments to share information about the estimated 30,000 satellites and other
space debris that are orbiting Earth.
SpaceX has already launched almost 1,900 satellites as part of the Starlink network, and plans
to deploy thousands more.
So thus, this problem is something much grander than you might realize down here on the Earth's
surface.
In November, the US space agency Nasa abruptly postponed a spacewalk from the International
Space Station over concerns about space debris.
One user described Starlink's satellites as "just a pile of space junk".
Which might be why Starlink is not exactly off to a great start in this new year...
2.
Refunds SpaceX informed a number of individuals in
India on Tuesday that it will be refunding their preorders, more than a month after New
Delhi told the firm to stop “booking/rendering the satellite internet service” in the South
Asian market without obtaining a license.
In an email to those who had preordered Starlink in India, the company said it was “looking
forward to making Starlink available in India as soon as possible,” but it currently doesn’t
have clarity on the “timeline for receiving licenses to operate.”
“As has always been the case, you can receive a refund at any time,” the company wrote,
outlining the steps to avail the refund.
Starlink had received over 5,000 preorders for its devices in India and was looking to
conduct pilots in the country.
Last year, the company appointed an India head, who reached out to several stakeholders
in the country to explore ways to collaborate.
In late November, the Indian government told the company, which competes with Bharti Group-backed
OneWeb and Amazon’s Kuiper, in a public statement that it needs to comply with the
regulations and refrain from taking preorders “with immediate effect.”
Starlink, which had shipped over 100,000 terminals to customers, sees India as a big potential
market.
Sanjay Bhargava, the India head of Starlink, said last year the company had plans to deploy
over 200,000 active terminals in over 160,000 districts in India by the end of December
2022.
“At Starlink, we want to serve the underserved.
We hope to work with fellow broadband providers, solution providers in the aspirational districts
to improve and save lives,” he wrote.
Even as more than half a billion people are online in India, just as many are still offline.
According to industry estimates, hundreds of millions of Indians living in rural areas
don’t have access to any broadband network.
“The government approval process is complex.
So far there is no application pending with the government, so the ball is in our court
to apply for consideration, which we are working on,” Bhargava said at the time.
“Our approach will be to get pilot approval quickly if Pan India approval will take long.
We are optimistic that we will get approval for a pilot program or Pan India approval
in the next few months,” said Bhargava in October, cautioning that if it fails to get
the government approval, the actual number of terminals it may end up deploying by the
end of next year will be “much lower than that or even zero.”
So yeah, Starlink may have a big user base that is hoping to use it, but whether it actually
is able to get to them is still up for debate.
However, that isn't stopping SpaceX from going full-tilt and ensuring that they are doing
all they can to get as much Starlink satellites up there in the atmosphere.
1.
Set For Launch SpaceX plans to kick off its 2022 launch schedule
with a Falcon 9 rocket flight Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with the company’s
next group of Starlink internet satellites.
In a change from previous Starlink missions, the Falcon 9 rocket will fly southeast from
the coast of Florida on a course just north of the Bahamas to place the new batch of internet
satellites into low Earth orbit a few hundred miles above Earth.
The mission, designated Starlink 4-5, is expected to target an orbital plane with a tilt of
53.2 degrees to the equator, one of five orbital “shells” at different inclination angles
that SpaceX plans to fill with around 4,400 satellites to provide high-speed, low-latency
broadband connectivity around the world.
SpaceX’s previous launches carrying Starlink satellites to a similar orbit have flown northeast
from Florida’s Space Coast.
Launches to the southeast must fly around the Bahamas to avoid the risk of dropping
debris on populated islands.
Maritime warning notices suggest the mission scheduled for Thursday will do just that,
tracking over the Atlantic Ocean north of the Abaco Islands, before making a slight
right turn to head farther downrange.
SpaceX plans to land the Falcon 9’s first stage booster on the drone ship “A Shortfall
of Gravitas” positioned in the Atlantic.
The landing platform departed Port Canaveral Saturday to head for the recovery zone.
Meanwhile, crews at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station are preparing another
Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff no earlier than Jan. 13 with dozens of small satellites from
U.S. and international customers.
That mission, known as Transporter 3, is SpaceX’s third dedicated rideshare launch hauling smallsats
into a sun-synchronous orbit.
The mission set for Thursday will mark SpaceX’s 34th dedicated launch with Starlink satellites.
SpaceX hasn’t said why the Falcon 9 rocket will take the southeasterly route to orbit
on the next flight, or disclosed how many Starlink satellites will be on-board.
Dedicated Falcon 9 launches with SpaceX’s latest generation of Starlink spacecraft have
carried between 48 and 53 satellites per mission.
SpaceX has launched 1,944 Starlink satellites to date, and the next mission will nudge that
sum close to 2,000.
But not all of those satellites remain in orbit.
Some have failed after launch, and SpaceX has intentionally de-orbited others, either
due to technical problems or obsolescence as newer designs reach orbit.
SpaceX has a long-term plan to launch as many as 42,000 Starlink satellites, according to
a company filing with the International Telecommunication Union.
The company’s initial focus is on deploying around 4,400 satellites into the first five
orbital shells.
Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink and commercial sales, said last
month that the Starlink network is providing internet service to consumers in more than
20 countries.
“We have well over 100,000 subscribers, both on the consumer and enterprise sides,”
he said in a panel discussion at Euroconsult’s annual World Satellite Business Week event
in Paris.
“And we’re not slowing down.
We’re just getting warmed up.”
So yeah, for those who aren't exactly happy with what SpaceX is doing right now...there
might not be a good way to stop them, because they're going to be putting a LOT more up
there in 2022.
So what do you think?
What do you think of this look at SpaceX and China and what the two are arguing over?
Do you think that this will be handled with ease going forward?
Or due to the very crowded nature of our atmosphere, we'll be hearing more stuff like this in the
future?
Let us know in the comments below, and we'll see you next time on the channel!