WENCHANG, CHINA – JULY 24: A Long March-5B Y3 rocket carrying a laboratory module on the Chinese space station… [+] Wentian lifts off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on July 24, 2022 in Wenchang, Hainan Province in China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
VCG via Getty Images
China’s latest space mission was a success, sending the new Wentian Laboratory Module to its Tiangong Space Station, but the Long March 5B (aka CZ-5B) rocket booster that sent it into orbit is set to impact its own… literally .
The CZ-5B is the most powerful rocket in China’s space program, but it appears to have a fairly significant design flaw: It lacks the ability to negotiate a controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Instead, the 23-ton, 10-story rocket spends some time circling Earth as our planet’s gravity gradually pulls it back toward a completely unplanned and uncontrolled re-entry.
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It was clear almost immediately after the Wentian deployment that the CZ-5B would eventually disappear in a fireball. And now we have a rough idea of when.
The aerospace corporation, which tracks the re-entry of rockets, spacecraft and other orbital objects, has already issued its prediction for when the booster will lose enough height in its orbit to re-enter our atmosphere.
“It is still too early to determine a meaningful debris footprint,” the company tweeted on Tuesday.
But it puts the re-entry window roughly between early Saturday morning and late Sunday night, Pacific time.
Statistically, the missile is most likely to land in the ocean or some remote area of land, but its flight path also takes it over some of the world’s most populated cities, including New York and Los Angeles.
If you are more than 41.5 degrees north or south of the equator, you should be safe. Take it easy, London.
The first two launches of the CZ-5B also resulted in uncontrolled re-entry, with one dropping debris off the west coast of Africa in 2020 and another falling into the ocean in 2021.
Once the rocket begins its descent through our atmosphere, most of it will burn up due to the intense friction. But several tons could make it all the way to the surface, probably in multiple pieces, scattered over a very wide debris field covering many miles.
Space junk observers such as the Aerospace Corporation, LeoLabs, and astronomer Jonathan McDowell will track the reentry and are good sources for updates to the point of reentry.
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