China's Changping 5B rocket falls to Earth uncontrollably

The rest of the Chinese-made rocket became the largest space junk to fall to Earth's surface in nearly three decades.

The center stage of the missile re-entered the atmosphere at 15h33 on 11/5, GMT, according to the 18th Space Control Division of the US Space Force (18 SPCS). At this time, the object is flying over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of West Africa.

"This is the object of the largest mass reintegrating (atmosphere) uncontrollably since the (space station) Salyut-7 weighed 39 tons in 1991," said Jonathan McDowell, a famous astrophysicist in China. Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysics center, said on Twitter.

Simulate the path of Truong Chinh 5B rocket on the end of orbit on 11/5. It re-enters the atmosphere north of the Atlantic Ocean, near the coast of West Africa. (Photo: Aerospace Corp).

According to Spaceflight Now, the object is about 30 meters long and 5 meters wide, weighing approximately 20 tons. This is the fourth largest volume of space junk to fall back to Earth in history, following the Skylab space station in 1979, the Skylab missile floor in 1975 and Salyut-7, the Soviet space station, in 1991.

Space vehicles often re-enter the atmosphere, but they are rarely of large size and are often equipped with navigation devices to safely return to Earth, typically to the South Pacific. Yang. Chinese missiles this time do not seem to be so.

Orbits re-enter the atmosphere of rockets, which are difficult to predict , because they travel at speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour. However, most parts of the object will ignite in the air, only some parts may fall to the surface of the Earth.

"For such a large object, thick solid parts like rocket engine components could fall to Earth , " expert McDowell told CNN. "Once they reach the lower atmosphere, they move relatively slowly, so the worst case scenario is that they can destroy a home."

However, the expert noted that the damage this time will be negligible, only equivalent to a piece of object dropped from the plane to the ground.

Truong Chinh 5B missile center floor in a previous mission. (Photo: Xinhua News Agency)

According to Spaceflight Now, Chinese missiles fly in orbit between the north and south 41.1 parallel, which means that re-entering the atmosphere can occur in locations as far north as New York and locations as far south as Wellington, New Zealand.

But in the end, any part of the object that wasn't burnt in the air seemed to fall into the sea, away from residential areas.

The Truong Chinh 5B rocket was launched into orbit on May 5 from Van Xuong launch site on Hainan Island, carrying the prototype of China's next-generation experimental spacecraft.

China plans to launch at least three Truong Chinh 5B missiles between 2021 and 2022, to transport parts to its space station. As a result, other uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry could occur in the next few years.