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BEIJING, Dec. 9 (AP) — The head of U.S. military space operations said Friday that the United States is closely monitoring Chinese activity that could threaten U.S. space assets as debris rapidly accumulates in low Earth orbit.
General James Dickinson, the Army commander of U.S. Space Command, also hailed the United Nations overwhelmingly passing a resolution ordering nations not to conduct direct ascent anti-satellite tests that would create large areas of space debris that would endanger satellites and space station.
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Of the four countries that have conducted such anti-satellite tests, only the United States voted in favor, China and Russia voted against it, and India abstained.
“We cannot continue to contribute to the debris that we find in the space domain,” Dickinson said in a telephone news conference with reporters in Asia. Most of the debris is in the critical low-Earth orbit, which has become “crowded.” , fierce competition”. And controversial,” he said.
Even tiny metal fragments can pose a hazard, and the number of objects is increasing dramatically.
Dickinson said Space Command is now tracking more than 48,000 of them in low-Earth orbit, including satellites, telescopes, space stations and debris of all sizes, up from 25,000 three years ago.
In 2003, China became the third government, after the former Soviet Union and the United States, to launch its own astronauts into orbit. Since then, its plans have progressed steadily.
China’s space program drew rare international criticism after an unannounced test in 2007 in which it used a missile to blow up a defunct Chinese satellite, creating debris that continues to pose a hazard.
Beijing believes that “space is a very important part of not only their economy or the global economic environment, but also the military environment, so we will continue to watch that very closely as they build capabilities,” Dickinson said.
The secretive Chinese program is run by the People’s Liberation Army, the military arm of the ruling Communist Party, which prevents it from participating in the International Space Station or most forms of cooperation with NASA.
With little outside help, China launched the last of three modules for its own space station last month, briefly hosting six Chinese astronauts in space during a three-person crew change.
It also has rovers on the Moon and Mars, and plans to have a crewed mission to the Moon sometime in the future.
Space is increasingly becoming a potential flashpoint as U.S.-China tensions rise over issues including Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and technology.
In addition, the Pentagon released an annual China security report last week warning that Beijing could have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, but did not spell out how it plans to use them.
China continues to “build capabilities that, frankly, put at risk most of our assets in space,” Dickinson said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further demonstrates that space is a “competing domain that must be protected.” This is a role that we at U.S. Space Command take very seriously,” he said.
“I’m seriously concerned about our tempo challenge, China,” said Dickinson, using a description of Beijing that has become the Pentagon standard.
“A unified stand among our allies and partners is critical to combating the coercion and subversion that threatens the rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific and beyond,” Dickinson said. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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