Much of the out of control Chinese rocket said …

A large segment of the rocket The Chinese who returned to the atmosphere on Sunday disintegrated over the Indian Ocean, after a series of speculations on where the 18-ton object would fall.

“According to the monitoring and analysis, at 10:24 am (02:24 GMT) on May 9, 2021, the first stage of the Long March 5B carrier rocket entered the atmosphere,” the Chinese Space Agency reported in a statement, providing the coordinates of a point in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. Most of this segment disintegrated and was destroyed on entering the atmosphere, he said.

Chinese authorities had claimed that the loss of control of the segment of the Long March 5B rocket, which launched the first module of its space station into orbit on April 29, presented little danger.

Space-Track, the US space surveillance network, based on US military data, also confirmed entry into the atmosphere. Everyone who follows the return of # LargaMarcha5B can relax. The rocket fell, “Space Track tweeted.

“We believe the rocket crashed in the Indian Ocean, but we are awaiting official data from @ 18SPCS,” he added in another tweet, referring to a US team tasked with controlling space. .

The space control squad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California “won’t know the precise location until after” the rocket has landed, Space-Track said.

The fall of the segment matches the predictions of some experts who said there is a high probability that it will fall into the sea because the planet is 70% water.

But the uncontrolled return of an object of this size raised concerns about possible damage and casualties, despite the low probability.

The United States took the opportunity to criticize

“The probability of causing damage to air activities or (people, buildings) on the ground is extremely low,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said last week.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said this week that his country has no intention of destroying the rocket. However, Austin hinted that China had not planned enough for its launch.

In 2020, debris from another Longue Marche rocket crashed into villages in Côte d’Ivoire, causing damage but not injuring others.

The Tiangong-1 space laboratory disintegrated when it re-entered the atmosphere in 2018, two years after it ceased to operate, although Chinese authorities have denied losing control of the spacecraft.

To avoid a repeat of this situation, experts recommended a redesign of the Long March 5B rocket, which lacks the ability to control its descent from orbit.

An entry (into the atmosphere) over the ocean has always been statistically the most likely, “tweeted Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer.” It seems China has won its bet (unless it has news of fallen parts in the Maldives). But it was always reckless, ”he said.

“The fact that a ton of pieces of metal falls on Earth at hundreds of km / h is not good practice, and China should review the design of the Long March 5B missions to avoid this,” he said. he adds.

The Chinese program

China has invested billions of dollars in its space program for several decades.

The Asian country launched the first module of its space station into orbit on April 29, thanks to the Long March 5B carrier rocket, China’s most powerful and impressive launcher.

The Asian giant sent its first astronaut into space in 2003. A Chinese probe landed on the other side of the Moon in 2019, a world first.

Last year, he brought back samples from the Moon and completed Beidu, his satellite navigation system (competitor to US GPS).

And in the coming weeks, China plans to land a small wheeled robot on Mars. In addition, the Chinese space agency has announced plans to build a lunar base with Russia.