On Friday, pieces of a 23-ton Chinese rocket stage made an uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry back to Earth, falling into the Pacific Ocean, according to the United States Space Command.
On Monday, China launched a Long March 5B rocket transporting the third and final module Mengtian, a science laboratory module, for the Chinese space station, Tiangong.
China have launched Long March 5B three times before in 2020, 2021 and earlier this year. One more launch is planned for next year, carrying the space telescope, Xuntian.
“The thing I want to point out about this is that we, the world, don’t deliberately launch things this big intending them to fall wherever. We haven’t done that for 50 years.”
– Ted Muelhaupt, Consultant for the Aerospace Corporation
The Chinese rocket stage is not equipped with a system to guide it upon re-entry, it is instead designed to burn up. The likelihood to be hit is very low, but not quite zero.
However, China is not the only offender and debris from American rockets has also turned up. In August, a small piece of a SpaceX vehicle crashed on an Australian sheep farm.
