
A Chinese Out-of-control Debris Rocket fell down into the Indian Ocean
Long March 5B rocket of China got uncontrolled and reentered the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. The rocket has landed somewhere close to Sarawak, the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Long March 5B rocket of China fell down in Indian Ocean
- Most of the rocket parts would get burned up on its way down
- The China’s third Long March 5B launch had marked its third out-of-control landing
The US Space Command had confirmed the rocket’s return at 12:45PM ET, however it remained unclear about where would the debris actually land. Well, in a translated post on Weibo, China’s Manned Space Agency had mentioned that the rocket would get reentered near the same area and from which most of it would have got burned up on its way down.
On 24th July, China used a Long March 5B rocket to launch a lab module to its unfinished Tiangong space station. Unlike most rockets, the Long March 5B thrusts its initial stage into orbit while delivering its payload. This piece, which would be over 100-feet-long and weighs more than 22 tons, orbits the Earth for a some time till it would come crashing all the way down to Earth, with no ways to control its movement.
Uncertainty concerning where would the rocket land rippled across the world this past week. Well, as the projections had the rocket landing anywhere from Mexico to the southern tip of Africa. Therefore, this would be China’s third Long March 5B launch, marking its third out-of-control landing. In 2020, China had used a Long March 5B in order to bring Tiangong’s core module to space. Debris from the rocket had landed within the Ivory Coast, and no major injuries were reported, there was some structural damage. Last year, China had launched its first lab module aboard a Long March 5B, the pieces of which got ended up splashing down into the Indian Ocean.
The Malaysian users on Twitter had captured the rocket’s apparent reentry, some believed that it was a meteor. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics had believed debris from the rocket would end up near Sibu, Bintulu, or Brunei. These three cities were located along the northern coast of Borneo, however believed that it’s “unlikely' that it would be landed in a populated area.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson had responded to the Twitter statement on the uncontrolled landing that “The People’s Republic of China has not shared specific trajectory information as their Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth.' He added “All spacefaring nations should be following the established best practices, and would do their part to share this kind of information in advance to permit reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, particularly for heavy-lift vehicles, just like the Long March 5B, that would carry a major risk of loss of life and property.”
However, this wasn't he last out-of-control rocket which was set to crash down to Earth. China had planned to launch its third and final module to Tiangong by using a Long March 5B in October, and it would use the rocket yet again in order to bring a telescope to space in 2023.
Also Read: The Re-entry of China’s Space Rocket Junk would hit the Earth by 31st July