Graphics

The U.S.-China Battle for Space: Should Low-orbit Satellites Worry Taiwan?

The United States and China are battling for dominance in space, in part by feverishly deploying low-orbit satellites to bolster their communication networks and defense systems. Taiwan wants in on this space race, but can it develop these critical satellites on its own?

Views

139

By Silva Shih, Sophie Lin
web only
2024-03-21

調整字體尺寸

On Jan. 9, four days before Taiwan’s presidential election, a scary alarm blared on mobile phones around the country accompanied by a bilingual text message saying in English that China had fired a missile over Taiwan.

That turned out to be wrong. The Chinese part of the message was accurate, that China had launched a satellite in outer space over Taiwan, but Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense had to issue an apology that same night for the mistake.

The use of the term “missile” in English was a technical error, but the incident reflected the fact that rockets are used to launch both missiles and satellites, which is why Chinese rocket launches have always been closely monitored by Taiwan’s military.

What the military detected on Jan. 9 was a Long March 2C rocket. The rocket’s predecessor carried China’s home-grown Dongfeng missiles, but this time it sent the Einstein Probe satellite into orbit.

Check out the graphic story: The U.S.-China Battle for Space: Should Low-orbit Satellites Worry Taiwan?