U.S. media recently reported that the U.S. Air Force has suspended a cargo rocket test flight project, due to concerns about its impact on the ecological environment.

The U.S. Air Force plans to collaborate with companies to use commercial rockets to transport up to 100 tons of cargo to any location around the world within "tactical time." The military plans to build two rocket landing sites on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific for testing. In October 2020, the U.S. military said it was collaborating with SpaceX, a company founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, but has not yet confirmed the cooperating enterprise.

On March 2, 2023, the crewed Dragon spacecraft of SpaceX took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, aboard the Falcon 9 rocket (long exposure photo). Xinhua News Agency photo (provided by NASA).

According to a report in "Federal Times" in March, the U.S. military is conducting an environmental assessment for building the landing site, which includes the construction and operation of the landing site, as well as the impact of up to 10 rocket landings per year over four years on Johnston Atoll. Environmental organizations oppose the plan to build the landing site.

The U.S. "Stars and Stripes" newspaper reported on March 3 that an Air Force spokesperson said in an email that they are considering locations other than Johnston Atoll as test sites for the cargo rocket project, and the environmental assessment of Johnston Atoll has been temporarily put on hold. Whether to restart or terminate the environmental assessment will be announced separately in the future.

Johnston Atoll is approximately 1,300 kilometers from Hawaii, USA, and is an unincorporated territory of the United States. It has long been used as a U.S. military testing site. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was used as a missile launch site for U.S. nuclear weapons tests, and several failed tests caused plutonium radioactive contamination.

An environmental organization said in March that the U.S. military-controlled Johnston Atoll has endured "devastating activities," including nuclear tests and the storage and disposal of chemical munitions, and building a cargo rocket landing site would cause "more irreversible damage" to the area.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

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