A Long March 5B rocket lifts off from the Wenchang launch site 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 its 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-tonne, 10-story Chinese rocket made an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday, and eyewitnesses saw it break up off the coast of Malaysia.
The US Space Force confirmed that what some first mistook for meteors was in fact the Long March 5B (CZ-5B) booster that successfully sent a new lab module to the space station Tiangong Chinese earlier this week.
The US Space Command wrote on Twitter 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 30/7.
“The People’s Republic of China did not share specific trajectory information as its Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson warned the Chinese government in a brief statement. after re-entry is confirmed. “All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices and do their part to share this type of information in advance to enable reliable predictions of the potential risk of debris impact, especially for transport vehicles heavy, such as the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property.”
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, a noted observer of all things orbital, noted that “the re-entry appears to have been observed from Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia. Debris would land in northern Borneo, possibly Brunei.”
This is the third time a CZ-5B has made an uncontrolled re-entry in the past two years.
There were no immediate reports of ground impact or debris damage.
History in progress…