The 23-ton Long March 5B rocket carrying materials for the construction of the Tiangong Space Station takes off from Hainan Island at 2:22 local time on Sunday, July 24. Normally, after using Once the fuel is used up at the beginning, this part will be separated and returned to Earth. Due to falling at high speed in the Earth’s atmosphere, the head will usually catch on fire and pose no danger.
Usually the head will burn up before impacting the Earth. Photo: Alejandro Miranda.
However, the Long March 5B rocket is too large with a 54m high head and weighs nearly 816,500 kg, making it impossible to completely burn up and fall back to Earth. The uncontrolled landing marks the third time China has been accused of not properly disposing of space debris from its rocket.
Previously in 2020 part of the Chinese ship Long March 5B also went down the west coast of Africa and Ivory Coast out of control and damaged structures. The second Long March 5B crashed into the Indian Ocean in May 2021 after 10 days of launch.
None of these incidents caused any injuries, but the potential for injury and damage to infrastructure on the ground has prompted experts to reprimand and warn China when it does. such debris falls.
Don’t worry too much because the casualty rate when space debris crashes is very low. Before launching the ships were calculated for the case of malfunction and will fall into the oceans or other uninhabited places. So far, no damage from falling spacecraft has been recorded. The odds of that happening are about one in a billion. However, recently, due to the increase in the amount of space junk, this rate has increased significantly.
According to Space.com.