Another large part of a Chinese rocket will fall uncontrollably to Earth and no one knows where

Once again – fourth in two years – a 23-tonne, 10-story building-tall piece of Chinese space “junk”, a section of a Long March 5B rocket, is spinning like Russian roulette around Earth where it will fall in an uncontrolled manner possibly today or Saturday and no one yet knows exactly where that will happen.

The rocket is the one that launched the third and final segment of China’s new Tiangong space station on October 31. As with previous launches of the same heavy-lift rocket, China’s space agency did not conduct a controlled descent of the remaining part of the rocket after releasing its payload.

Although much of the rocket will burn up in the atmosphere by the time it reaches Earth, some of it eventually – 20% to 40% – is expected to fall on it, possibly in the sea that covers 70% of our planet. It is estimated that about 88% of the world’s population lives in the areas of possible fall, but experts nevertheless pointed out that the chances of someone being hit by the huge “junk” are only six in 10 trillion.

In July this year a Long March 5B rocket section weighing 5.5 to 10 tons had crashed in the Indian Ocean, in April 2021 something similar had happened in the same ocean, while in 2020 parts of the missile had fallen somewhere in West Africa. Although no disasters or deaths have been reported so far from such incidents, the voices of those calling for the establishment of international regulations or even laws to prevent such incidents are gradually increasing, coming from other countries with a space program, according to the “News Times”. York” and Space.com.

RES-EMP

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