On Sunday, a big Chinese rocket went to space. No one knows when or where it will come down.
The Long March 5B is one of the largest rockets currently used. The world's watchers of space debris will be watching the rocket booster as it slowly pulls itself back down.
There is a low chance that it will hit anyone on Earth.
The purpose of the rocket was to launch pieces of the space station. Wentian is a laboratory module that will be used for scientific research. Three more spaces for astronauts to sleep and another airlock will be added.
State media broadcasts say that completing and operating the space station is important to China. The country's reputation has been damaged by previous flights of the rocket.
The booster reentered over West Africa after the first Long March 5B launch in 2020, causing damage but no injuries.
The booster from the second launch landed in the Indian Ocean. The NASA administrator criticized the Chinese. He said that China is failing to meet responsible standards.
China received a lot of attention for rejecting that criticism. The United States was accused ofhype by a senior spokeswoman at the ministry.
The US and a few other countries have been hyping up the landing of the Chinese rocket debris. There have been no reports of damage by the landing debris. There have been no incidents of debris hitting someone since the launch of the first man-made satellite over six decades ago. The chance of that is less than one in a billion.
A request for an interview about the upcoming launch was not responded to by China's space agencies.
The Chinese government sees each major launch as adding to its collection of space power, according to an author.
China's space program is more advanced than Russia's. She said that China is ahead of the Russian space program when it comes to lunar and Mars programs.
Crowds of China's space fans spread across the beach near the rocket launch area on Hainan Island in the country's south. Some people crammed onto rooftops at hotels.
A group of people set up a camera on the roof of a hotel.
She has traveled to chase rockets 19 times. Four months ago, she made her hotel reservations.
She said there are more people.
The nickname for the rocket was "Fat Five." When it is launched there will be a small earthquake.
After landing a rover on the far side of the moon, China brought it back to Earth for scientific study and also operated a rover on the red planet. The United States is the only one to have accomplished that.
Joan Johnson-Freese is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and chair of the National Security Affairs department. The US is concerned that it is reaching technical parity.
The Chinese space program is similar to the American hare in that it has sped up in recent years.
Six missions have been completed by China for the construction of the space station. The crew that will receive the Wentian module this week have lived on the station.
The Wentian spaceship was placed on its intended path after 15 minutes after the launch. The space station module is to be rendezvoused about 13 hours after the liftoff. There has been no indication from the Chinese space agency that it has changed the booster.
The comings and goings of objects in space will be the same as before. The rocket designers could have made a small change to the rocket that would allow them to propulsively deorbit the stage. I don't think so.
The booster's engines can't be started if the rocket design hasn't changed. The final rain of debris, with a few tons of metal expected to survive all the way to the surface, could occur anywhere along the booster's path.
Los Angeles, New York, Cairo and Australia are some of the cities that the booster will travel over, meaning there will be no danger to Chicago or Rome.
Predicting the location of a tumbling rocket stage is difficult. The rate of falling on the Earth depends on how much the sun shines on a particular day. The falling debris has traveled one-third of the way around the world if a calculation is off.
The Wentian module, which is more than 50 feet long, will be pushed by the center booster stage. The booster will reach the space station.
The lower stages of most rockets are usually dropped back to Earth after launch. After releasing their cargo, the upper stages usually fire the engine again to guide them back to Earth.
The second stage of a rocket that came down over Washington State was caused by a malfunctioning motor. The Falcon 9 stage was less likely to cause damage than the other stages.
When large objects were brought back into the atmosphere, the US and NASA were not as careful as they are now.
The first American space station, Skylab, plummeted to Earth in 1979. NASA didn't pay a fine for littering.
After the end of the mission in 2005, NASA didn't plan to dispose of the UARS satellite. NASA calculated a 1-in-3,200 chance that someone could be hurt when the dead satellite reenters the Earth's atmosphere. It fell in the ocean.
20 percent to 40 percent of a rocket or satellite will survive re-entry, according to Ted Muelhaupt, an expert at the nonprofit that performs research and analysis.
It is possible that the Long March 5B booster could hit the earth.
The United States and other countries avoid re-entries of space debris if the chance of an injury to someone on the ground is greater than 1 in 10,000.
There have been no known cases of people being hurt by falling debris.
Mr. Muelhaupt said that it was somewhat arbitrary. When a lot of objects re-enter, they add up to the point where someone is going to get hurt, and it has been accepted.
It is common to dump them in the ocean if the risk is high. You know you won't hit anyone.
It wouldn't be possible to estimate the risk without details of the Chinese rocket's design. He said he was very confident that this was above the threshold. It's above the threshold.
The Long March 5B booster is much larger than the UARS. It's possible that it poses three times as much of a risk as NASA thought.
The three UARSs are in some way related. He said that it could be as much as one in a few hundred.
A former official at the China National Space Administration referred to the incident in 2020 during a prelaunch broadcast. He said that they improved their technologies since then to bring the rocket stage down.
The same events could happen again.
The second laboratory module will be launched in October to complete the assembly of the space station. It will also fly on another rocket.
Li You made a contribution.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
