NASA and Pentagon search for Chinese aimless rocket that could hit Earth in hours

The Pentagon said it was hunt down the Chinese rocket that is expected to reenter the atmosphere uncontrollably this weekend, risking crashing in an inhabited area.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “has been informed and knows that Space Command is literally hunting down this rocket debris.”Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

China launched the first of three elements of its space station, the CSS, which was powered by a Long March 5B rocket on Thursday. It’s the body of this rocket that’s going to land in the next few days, and no one knows where.
“It is almost the body of the rocket, if I understood correctly. It is almost intact”, he added, specifying that the re-entry into the atmosphere is planned “around Saturday”.

After separation of the space module, the launcher began to orbit the planet in an irregular trajectory, slowly losing altitude, making any prediction of its point of entry into the atmosphere almost impossible, and therefore from its point of fall.

It can decompose on entering the atmosphere, leaving only small debris to collide with.
And if it remains intact, with the planet 70% water, there is a good chance that the rocket will fall into the sea, although it is not sure. It could crash into a populated area or onto a ship.

Asked about the possibility that space debris is destroyed if land areas are threatened, the Pentagon spokesman replied that it was “too early” to tell.

“We are watching him, we are following him as closely as possible,” he said. “But it is too early to know where he will go and if there is anything to be done.”

This is not the first time that China has lost control of a spacecraft upon its return to Earth. In April 2018, a Tiangong-1 space laboratory disintegrated when it re-entered the atmosphere, two years after it ceased to function. Chinese authorities have denied the lab is out of control. (AFP)