![]() "Why the Chinese rocket is coming down uncontrolled is not at all clear," Harwood said. However, as one of the largest spacecraft to ever re-enter uncontrollably, there is still a risk that debris will land in a metropolitan area.Įarly Thursday morning, the CBS News team in Washington, D.C., spotted reported remnants of the rocket, appearing faintly as a tiny, pulsating light, over the nation's capital. Most likely, it will land in the ocean, which makes up over 70% of the planet, or in an uninhabited region. It has the potential to land in the U.S., Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, India, China or Australia. is committed to addressing the risks of growing congestion due to space debris and growing activity in space, and we want to work with the international community to promote leadership and responsible space behaviors."ĭespite much speculation, no one knows what will happen when the rocket enters Earth's atmosphere, or where the debris will fall. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that "the U.S. On Thursday, a defense official told CBS News that the rocket is now "projected to fall to Earth on Sunday, but where is still unknown." Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said there are no plans to try to shoot down the rocket, which would only create more debris. Several other agencies are also tracking its movement. The 18th Space Control Squadron is offering daily updates on the rocket body's location. Space Command Public Affairs, told CBS News earlier this week. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space, but its exact entry point into the Earth's atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its re-entry," Lt. A Long March-5B Y2 rocket carrying the core module of China's space station, Tianhe, blasts off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on April 29, 2021, in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China. Video appeared to show the rocket was still in orbit over Jordan at 10:11 p.m. ET, The Aerospace Corporation said that the "absence of new data sets could indicate #LongMarch5B reentered." It added however that it could not confirm re-entry without "video footage, a decay message or a new data set." The Aerospace Corporation has made a similar prediction.Īs of 10:23 p.m. Space Force officials currently estimate the rocket will re-enter the atmosphere between about 9 p.m. On Saturday afternoon, the 18th Space Control Squadron, which tracks more than 27,000 man-made objects in space, narrowed its prediction to one orbit that includes Costa Rica, Haiti, Iberia, Sardinia, Italy, Greece and Crete, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Australia and New Zealand, according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who has been tracking the rocket's movement. The Chinese government has not issued a statement regarding these rocket reentry events.įollow Brett on Twitter at. The Long March 5B has no such capabilities and instead must be pulled down by drag wherever it happens to fall. Other orbital-class rockets are typically designed so that their first stages can be safely pushed down into the ocean after separating from their upper stages, or in the case of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, are designed to safely land on the ground and be reused. These uncontrolled reentries are an unfortunate feature of the design of the Long March 5B. We must work on technology to better track and predict and mitigate satellites and rocket bodies heading for uncontrolled reentries," Aschbacher's statement continued. "In the past decade, about 100 pieces of large debris have re-entered the atmosphere each year, with a total annual mass of about 150 metric tons. China launches final module to complete Tiangong space station (video) 25-ton Chinese rocket debris crashes to Earth over Indian Ocean Another huge piece of Chinese space junk is falling to Earth. "They did not share specific trajectory information which is needed to predict landing zones and reduce risk." "Once again, the People's Republic of China is taking unnecessary risks with the uncontrolled rocket stage reentry of their Long March 5B rocket stage," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote in an emailed statement on Friday (Nov. Nevertheless, space agency chiefs denounced this latest uncontrolled Chinese rocket reentry for the possible risks it created. Luckily, the massive piece of rocket debris landed safely in the Pacific Ocean without incident. The massive piece of space junk was left to be pulled down in an uncontrolled fashion by atmospheric drag, creating worries on the ground about where it might land. As with other Long March 5B launches, there was no attempt made to safely deorbit the rocket's core stage after it reached orbit. 31) that carried the Mengtian science module to the nation's Tiangong space station. The 23-ton (21 metric tons) piece of debris resulted from China's launch of a Long March 5B rocket on Monday (Oct.
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