A Chinese rocket plunged safely toward Earth and into the Indian Ocean on Saturday after days of speculation, but the US space agency NASA complained that it had been kept in the dark about its descent path.
The Long March 5B rocket re-entered over the Indian Ocean at about 12:45 a.m. EDT Saturday (1645 GMT), but NASA said any questions about “technical aspects of the re-entry, such as a potential debris dispersal site,” would have to receive a response from China.
Aerospace Corp, a government-funded nonprofit research center near Los Angeles, said it was reckless to allow the rocket’s entire main stage — which weighs 22.5 tons (about 48,500 pounds) — to return to Earth. upon uncontrolled re-entry.
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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, “All space nations should follow established best practices and contribute to sharing this type of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk.
“This is critical to the responsible use of space and to ensuring the safety of people here on Earth.”
Social media users in Malaysia posted a video of what appeared to be missile debris.
Earlier this week, analysts said the rocket’s body will disintegrate as it plunges into the atmosphere, but is large enough that numerous pieces are likely to survive a fiery re-entry to rain debris over an area about 2,000 km ( 1240 miles) by about 70 km (44 miles) wide.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment. China said earlier this week it would monitor the debris closely, but said it posed little risk to anyone on the ground.
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Long March 5B launched on July 24 to deliver a laboratory module to China’s new space station under construction into orbit, marking the third flight of China’s most powerful rocket since its first launch in 2020.
Fragments from another Chinese Long March 5B landed in Ivory Coast in 2020, damaging several buildings in the West African nation, although no injuries were reported.
In contrast, he said, the United States and most other space-faring nations typically incur extra costs to design their rockets to avoid large, uncontrolled re-entries — an imperative largely seen after large chunks of the space station NASA’s Skylab fell from orbit in 1979 and landed in Australia.
Last year, NASA and others accused China of being opaque after the government in Beijing remained silent on the estimated trajectory of debris or the re-entry window of its final Long March rocket flight in May 2021.
Debris from that flight landed harmlessly in the Indian Ocean.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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Sean O’Meara
Sean O’Meara is an editor at Asia Financial. He has been a newspaperman for over 30 years, working in local, regional and national publications across the UK as a writer, deputy editor, page designer and print editor. A football, cricket and rugby fan, he has a particular interest in sports finance.
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