China demonstrates the amazing accuracy of its satellites and scares the US by calculating the path of a dangerous asteroid

The United States may be the world’s leading aerospace nation, but China appears to be a major competitor. This is evidenced by a recently declassified experiment by the Middle Kingdom that demonstrates the extraordinary capabilities of Chinese satellites.

The events took place in 2022. At the time, there were suspicions that an asteroid might collide with Earth. It is called 1994 PC1, and it is the size of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Details South China Morning Post. So the collision would be catastrophic, but it is difficult for astronomers to pinpoint its exact location, and thus deduce its exact path.

Chinese devices outperform ground-based telescopes in trajectory calculation

That's when the Jilin-1 satellite constellation comes into play, when it's put into near-Earth orbit, and generally monitors the planet. But in the face of this situation, China has managed to reverse the direction of its device, so that it points toward space, not toward the blue planet.

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Then the Chinese machine starts taking pictures every second. It not only captures images of the asteroid, but also determines the orbital position of 1994 PC1. And with a curious accuracy.

While the margin of error of ground-based telescopes was not sufficient to determine the asteroid’s path, the Chinese constellation was able to pinpoint it to a distance of 33 kilometers. This is a real achievement because this made it possible to reduce the margin of error of ground-based telescopes by an order of magnitude. And all this with satellites not dedicated to this mission, and an asteroid located two million kilometers from Earth, five times farther than the moon.

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With more than 100 satellites, the Jilin-1 constellation is the largest in the world.

If this maneuver ensured that the 1994 PC1 satellite passed safely over the Earth, it would have demonstrated above all the extraordinary capabilities of Chinese satellites. This is a worrying prospect for the United States, which fears the military use of these tools, especially since China seems keen to improve its equipment.

“Follow-up experiments will be conducted to detect faint near-Earth asteroids using existing space-based equipment.”“A team from the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences writes in the Chinese Journal of Deep Space Exploration.

Currently, the Jilin-1 constellation has more than 100 satellites. It is the largest active Earth observation network to date, according to the South China Morning Post. These objects are capable of taking high-resolution images of almost any location on the planet. Even an American F-22 Raptor fighter has been immortalized in this way.

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The US says that “half of China's satellites are combat satellites.”

While the United States has by far the largest number of satellites orbiting the Earth, most of them belong to Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite communications service. However, Chinese satellites are being judged “Treachery” By US Space Force.

“We are building new capabilities, trying new things. […] But it is not the total force structure we need to be able to compete with, deter, or even fight and win against the wide range of assets the Chinese are putting into orbit.Kelly Hammett, director of the U.S. Space Force's Rapid Capabilities Office, announced in late March.

He is responsible for the rapid development, rapid production, and deployment of U.S. space capabilities. China is estimated to have 400 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites already in orbit. According to Kelly Hammett, “More than half of them are combat satellites.”.

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So China’s recent machine prowess will only revive American concerns, and reinforce NASA’s suspicions about the military aims it attributes to China’s space program.

This article was originally published on June 4.