Debris from a large, recently launched Chinese rocket is expected to return to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry early Saturday afternoon.
The space debris re-entry window has narrowed as its orbit decays and it is no longer possible for the rocket booster stage to fall into the atmosphere over the United States.
However, a populated area of Mexico on the Baja California Peninsula, near Cabo San Lucas, is now the midpoint of the re-entry window, according to the latest Aerospace Corporation estimate.
The latest overland track also crosses South America and Southeast Asia, including parts of China itself. However, most of the potential re-entry area is over the open ocean.
Because the booster stage races around Earth’s orbit every 90 minutes, the exact point at which it will fall from the sky is impossible to predict.
The falling space junk is the 23-tonne booster stage of the Long March 5B-Y3 rocket – China’s most powerful – which was launched on July 24 to deliver the Wentian module to China’s Tiangong space station.
The latest ground track from the Aerospace Corporation shows the path of the falling rocket booster during the re-entry window of 2:15 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. ET on Saturday. The yellow icon shows the debris in the middle of the window. The blue line shows the ground track before the middle of the window and the yellow line the ground track after the middle
The falling space junk is the 23-tonne booster stage of the Long March 5B-Y3 rocket – China’s most powerful – which was launched on July 24 (above) to deliver the Wentian module to China’s Tiangong space station
The group predicts the rocket stage will exit orbit between 12:24 p.m. and 2:24 p.m. ET on Saturday, a window still large enough for the debris to circle Earth roughly 1.3 times.
The Western Hemisphere will be in daylight during this re-entry window, meaning you’re unlikely to catch a glimpse of falling debris. But the booster could run into darkness on the road that crosses Indonesia and the Philippines.
The US Space Command, which is also tracking the debris, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from DailyMail.com on Saturday morning.
As space debris gets closer and closer to Earth, predictions of when it will strike become more accurate.
The Aerospace Corporation said there is “a non-zero chance” of debris falling in a populated area – in other words, it’s not impossible, so it could happen.
“A re-entry of this size will not burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere,” said the Aerospace Corporation, which is based in El Segundo, California.
“The general rule is that 20-40 percent of the mass of a large object will reach the ground, although it depends on the design of the object.”
But according to Aerospace Corporation consultant Ted Muehlhaupt, the overall risk to people and property on the ground is relatively low because most of the land surface in the potential re-entry zone is water, desert or jungle.
Speaking during a briefing streamed live on Twitter on Thursday, Muelhaupt also said there was a “99.5 percent chance nothing would happen.”
“Personally, if that was coming down on my head, I’d run outside with a camera to watch it because I think it would be more visual [opportunity] than a real risk,” he said.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, added: “The worst case in this event will be less severe than a single cruise missile strike that we see every day in the war in Ukraine, so let’s put it in some perspective here.’
The wayward booster delivered the Wentian Module to China’s Tiangong Space Station (seen in image above)
An engineer sits in front of a monitor showing an animation of space debris at the European Space Agency’s (ESA) new Space Safety Center located at the European Satellite Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany
Muelhaupt said the chances of a particular individual being injured by the debris are slim, on the order of six chances in 10 trillion.
By comparison, you’re about 5,500 times more likely to win the Mega Millions jackpot, which has odds of 1 in 303 million.
THE CHINESE LONG MARCH 5B MISSILE
On Sunday (July 24), China launched a new module for its space station on a Long March 5B rocket.
Unfortunately, the rocket’s booster — which weighs 22 metric tons (about 48,500 pounds) — has already reached low orbit and is expected to fall back to Earth.
The Aerospace Corporation says the rocket booster is set to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at 1:15 p.m. ET on Saturday, plus or minus one hour either way.
The Aerospace Corporation said there is “a non-zero chance” of debris falling in a populated area – in other words, it’s not impossible, so it could happen.
But the odds that anyone on the planet could be hurt are much lower, roughly one in 1,000 to one in 230, and well above the internationally accepted accident risk threshold of one in 10,000, Muehlhaupt told reporters.
It is possible that part of the 21-ton Long March 5B rocket may not be able to burn up completely when it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
It will then fall to the surface in an uncertain location and at a high speed – several hundred miles per hour.
This happened in May 2020 when fragments of another Chinese Long March 5B landed in Ivory Coast, damaging several buildings in the West African nation, although no injuries were reported.
Most space nations take precautions to prevent uncontrolled re-entry, a lesson learned after large chunks of NASA’s Skylab space station fell from orbit in 1979 and landed in Australia.
The problem with China’s missiles is rooted in the risky design of the country’s launch process.
Typically, ejected booster stages re-enter the atmosphere soon after liftoff on a planned trajectory to be ejected over water, and do not go into orbit.
However, the Long March 5B rocket booster enters orbit – and has no mechanism to control its descent as the orbit decays.
The shape of the falling Chinese space station Tiangong-1 can be seen in this radar image during its uncontrolled re-entry in 2018.
Debris from American spacecraft has fallen to Earth before — but usually only in catastrophic disasters. Debris from space shuttle Columbia is seen above in 2003 after it disintegrated on re-entry, killing all seven astronauts on board
The rocket body will eventually disintegrate as it plunges through the atmosphere, but it is large enough that numerous pieces will likely survive a fiery re-entry to shower debris on the Earth’s surface.
China has previously rejected accusations of irresponsibility, with the Chinese foreign ministry saying the likelihood of damage to anything or anyone on the ground was “extremely low”.
Many scientists agree with China that the chances of debris causing serious damage are small, although others believe launch projects like the Long March 5B pose an unnecessary risk.
Last May, one of the country’s Long March 5B missiles disintegrated on re-entry over the Indian Ocean, north of the Maldives.
Long March 5B sent Tianhe, the first building block of China’s new space station, into orbit in April.
There were fears it might crash into a populated area on land, although it eventually fell into the ocean.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson criticized Beijing and insisted it was “critical” for China and other countries to “act responsibly and transparently in space.”
“Space nations must minimize risks to people and property on Earth from re-entry of space objects and maximize transparency regarding these operations,” he wrote in a statement.
The Wenchang Space Launch Center, from which the Wentian Module was launched on July 24, is a rocket launch site on Hainan Island, China
Wentian, a research laboratory dedicated to scientific and biological experiments, has already docked with the main body of the space station, called Tianhe.
It will be followed by a second research laboratory module, Mengtian, due to be launched in October this year.
When Mengtian joins the rest of Tiangong, construction of the space station will finally be complete, although Beijing also plans to launch Xuntian, a space telescope that will orbit the space station, in 2024.
Tiangong (meaning “heavenly palace”) will rival the aging International Space Station (ISS), which is operated by the space agencies of the US, Canada, Russia, Japan and Europe.
It will consist of three modules, although two other spacecraft – Shenzhou and Tianzhou – which transport crew and cargo respectively, may also dock at the station.
Once completed, the Tiangong space station will weigh about 66 tons, much smaller than the ISS, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs about 450 tons.
It is expected to have a lifespan of at least 10 years.
TIANGONG: CHINA’S NEW SPACE STATION CONSISTING OF THREE INDEPENDENT MODULES AND TWO DEPLOYABLE SPACECRAFT
The Chinese space station is called “Tiangong”, which means “Heavenly Palace”.
Tiangong consists of several different modules that are launched one by one.
In April 2021, the core module called “Tianhe” was released. The first crew arrived at Tianhe two months later.
In July 2022 Wentian, a smaller module where research experiments will be conducted, attached to Tianhe.
In October 2022, a second research laboratory module, Mengtian, will also be attached to Tianhe. When this is done, the Tiangong Space Station will be completed.
Two other spacecraft that can dock at the station—the Shenzhou and Tianzhou—transport crew and cargo, respectively, and are not considered part of the station itself.
China also plans to launch Xuntian, a space telescope that will operate in orbit with the space station, in 2024.
A 3D rendering of the Chinese Space Station, or Tiangong Space Station, as it will look when fully built. The Tianhe will form the main living quarters for three crew…
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