A Long March 5B rocket takes off from the Wenchang launch pad in southern China’s Hainan… [+] island on May 5, 2020 – Chinese state media reported the “successful” launch of a new rocket on May 5, a major test of China’s ambitions to operate a permanent space station and send astronauts to the moon. (Photo by STR / AFP) / China OUT (Photo by STR / AFP via Getty Images)
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A 23-ton, 10-story Chinese rocket made an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday and was seen disintegrating off the coast of Malaysia by eyewitnesses.
The US space force has confirmed that what some first mistook for meteors was actually the Long March 5B (CZ-5B) booster that successfully sent a new lab module to China’s Tiangong space station earlier this week.
The US Space Command tweeted that it “can confirm that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Long March 5B (CZ-5B) re-entered the Indian Ocean at approx. 10:45am MDT on 7/30.”
“The People’s Republic of China did not share specific trajectory information as their Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a Chinese government statement shortly after the re-entry was confirmed. “All space nations should follow established best practices and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles such as the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property.”
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, a leading observer of everything in orbit, noted that “the re-entry appears to have been observed from Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia. The debris will fall down in North Borneo, possibly Brunei.”
This is the third time the CZ-5B has made an uncontrolled re-entry in the past two years.
There were no immediate reports of ground impact or debris damage.
An evolving story…
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