![]() ![]() ![]() What's the risk Live Science Space Space Exploration A 25-ton Chinese rocket booster will crash to Earth Saturday. Possible re-entry locations lie anywhere along the blue and yellow ground track. Another Chinese rocket booster will crash to Earth Saturday. William Harwood contributed to this report. Similarly, when Skylab re-entered in 1978, debris fell over Western Australia, but no injuries were reported. When 200,000 pounds of spacecraft broke up over Texas, a significant amount of debris hit the ground, but there were no injuries. The most significant re-entry breakup over a populated area was the shuttle Columbia, which entered in February 2003. In May of last year, another Long March-5B rocket fell into the atmosphere, ultimately landing near the west coast of Africa. In 2018, Tiangong 1, China's defunct space station, made an uncontrolled re-entry and landed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The China National Space Administration has faced issues with re-entry in the past. rockets (and most others) routinely fire their engines to target re-entries over the southern Pacific to ensure debris can't land on populated areas." "Why the Chinese rocket is coming down uncontrolled is not at all clear," said CBS News' William Harwood. ![]() Space Command's Space Track Project attempted to calm those fears, tweeting, "Everyone else following the #LongMarch5B reentry can relax. The rocket had the potential to land in the U.S., Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, India, China or Australia - heightening anxiety around the world that it could cause damage to property or injure people.Īfter re-entry, the U.S. 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.Īhead of re-entry, scientists and officials were unable to give a clear prediction for re-entry. Its fast speed made its landing place nearly impossible to predict, but it had been expected to re-enter the atmosphere Saturday or Sunday. After the core separated from the rest of the rocket, it should have followed a predetermined flight path into the ocean.īut scientists had little idea where it would land as it orbited the planet unpredictably every 90 minutes at about 17,000 miles per hour. The 23-ton Chinese rocket Long March-5B recently launched the first module for the country's new space station into orbit. The remnants were left over from China's first module for its new Tianhe space station. ![]()
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