The U.S military is tracking an uncontrolled, 100 feet long and 16 feet wide Chinese rocket that is expected to plunge to earth from space today, making it the largest object to fall out of orbit in decades.
China’s Long March 5B rocket was launched May 5 from the Wenchang launch center in the southern island province of Hainan, which extends into the South China Sea. The rocket was fitted with a prototype version of China’s next-generation crew capsule.
Dead satellites and old rocket stages regularly re-enter the atmosphere, but re-entering objects with masses of more than a few tons are rare.
While the reentry of space junk like old satellites and spent rocket stages is not uncommon, they are rarely more than a few tons. Given the size of the Long March 5B rocket, it is “possible” that parts of the Chinese launcher will survive reentry to land on Earth.
“It’s a concern,” McDowell said on Twitter, adding that China could have avoided reentry by including a deorbit engine to maneuver the launch rocket to “a safe place on the end of the first orbit.”
“But the Chinese apparently were too cheap to do this,” he said.
China Seeks to Displace US as Leading Space Power
Over the past 20 years, China has made rapid progress in space as it looks to fulfil its ambitions to become a military, cyber, and space power.“Our adversaries are weaponizing Earth’s orbits with new technology targeting American satellites that are critical to both battlefield operations and our way of life at home. Our freedom to operate in space is also essential to detecting and destroying any missile launched against the United States,” President Donald Trump warned during the Rose Garden ceremony on Aug. 29, 2019.
The country continues to invest heavily in its own state-run space programs and is becoming one of the largest investors in private companies, while president Xi Jinping “has emphasized the importance of science and technology (S&T) innovation, both for rejuvenating China and modernizing China’s military.”
Over the next two years, China has plans to send four crewed space missions and the same number of cargo craft to complete work on a permanent space station. Further launches of the new Long March 5B rocket—and uncontrolled reentries—are expected as China plans to send modules of the future space station into orbit. China, alongside the United States and the United Arab Emirates, has also said it is planning missions to Mars this summer.