“It’s a mug’s game trying to predict reentry locations,” says McDowell.
It (Probably) Wont Land On You By Jeffrey Kluger 12:05 PM EDT I f you’re not at least a little worried about. Its orbital speed exceeds 28,000 k/h (17,500 mph), and miscalculating the reentry by half an hour either way can make a difference of more than 10,000 km in landing distance. A Massive Chinese Rocket Will Fall Uncontrollably Back to Earth Soon.
It’s impossible to know which population centers-if any-the rocket will threaten until just before it begins its final reentry. That puts an awful lot of people in its direct path. The rocket stage’s orbital inclination-its angle relative to the equator-is 41.5º, carrying it as far north as Chicago, Rome and Beijing and as far south as New Zealand and Tasmania. A 21-tonne chunk of space debris from a Chinese rocket launch is set to crash back to Earth in the coming days, potentially hitting an inhabited area. The question of just where it will reenter is a more complicated business. The more contact the atmosphere makes with the rocket stage, the faster its orbit will decay. The rocket’s reentry time will be determined in part by earth’s atmosphere, which can swell or contract slightly depending upon random fluctuations of solar energy reaching the planet. China blames the US for hyping fears of uncontrolled rocket reentry as space race heats up Analysis by Nectar Gan and James Griffiths, CNN Updated 2:26 AM EDT, Mon Link Copied. “But its exact entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry, which is expected around May 8.” Space Command spokesperson in an email to TIME. Latest update, 12:36 a.m.: The rocket has reentered Earths atmosphere and fell into the Indian ocean north of the Maldives at latitude 22.2, longitude 50.0. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space,” said a U.S. Trying to guess exactly where and when the rocket will re-enter is no simple business, though the U.S. “They really do have to get with the 21st century.” “The fact that let the core stage go into orbit reflects a lack of caring,” says McDowell. A Chinese rocket falling toward Earth at around 18,000 miles an hour reentered the atmosphere late Saturday, landing in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives, China's space agency reported. But the spent Long March core stage was left behind in a much more wobbly (and unsustainable) orbit, and now it’s destined to fall back to Earth. Tianhe has its own guidance system to keep it in a high, stable orbit. Instead, the core stage made it all the way to orbit along with the Tianhe module. R emnants from a massive Chinese rocket booster crashed back to Earth on Saturday over the Indian Ocean, space officials from the US and China confirmed. In the case of China, which launches its rockets from the Wenchang Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan, the Pacific is typically the junk yard.īut the Long March 5B didn’t fly that way. 1:31 A dead NASA satellite will be crashing back into Earths atmosphere Wednesday, officials say, but the chances of it hitting 'anyone on Earth is low.' The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar. In the case of rockets launched from Cape Canaveral, the dumping ground is the nearby Atlantic. Hong Kong CNN The remnants of the massive Chinese rocket that delivered a new module to its space station on Monday are expected to fall to Earth early next week, according to US. That means that when it’s done with its work, it falls immediately back to Earth in a predictable way and in an unpopulated area. Rather, they keep it on a parabolic, suborbital trajectory. The world's second-largest economy has pumped billions of dollars into its military-run space program in an effort to catch up with the United States and Russia.īeijing aims to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030 and plans to build a base on the lunar surface.When spacefaring nations send a payload to orbit and jettison a spent first rocket stage along the way, they typically don’t let that stage fly too high or too fast, which would allow it to reach orbit. The trio had spent six months at the Tiangong space station, conducting spacewalks and a variety of scientific experiments.Ĭhina last week sent three more astronauts-including its first civilian in orbit-to the space station as part of the successor Shenzhou-16 mission. was a complete success," it said.įootage showed medical officials in white jumpsuits and face masks swaddling the astronauts in blue blankets and carrying them away from the arid landing site, where the copper-colored capsule lay flanked by red flags. The return capsule of the Shenzhou-15 spaceship touched down at a landing site in northern China's Inner Mongolia region, according to state news agency Xinhua.Īstronauts Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu emerged from the capsule in "good physical condition", Xinhua reported.
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