China Rocket Debris Flies Near Starlink Satellites

The Chinese government confirmed this week that a Long March 6A rocket broke up on Saturday November 12 and left debris in a near-Earth orbit close to SpaceX satellites used by Elon Musk’s Starlink internet company, a report by the South China Morning Post said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning was quoted as saying “as far as we know, the relevant incident will not affect the Chinese space station or the International Space Station”, while a local space scientist said any chance of the incident being part of a plan to bring down Starlink satellites – as some academics have proposed because of the role they have played in the war in Ukraine – was unlikely given the risk to the Chinese space station.

Read the full report: South China Morning Post.