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| The 21-tonne Long March B5 booster was launched on July 24, 2022, to deliver a new module to China's Tiangong space station (File photo: AFP) |
The main part of the uncontrolled Chinese rocket 'Long March' crashed over the Indian Ocean on Saturday.
But unlike reusable rocket boosters that can come down quickly, like the SpaceX Falcon 9, the Long March rocket was left uncontrolled until it descended naturally from its orbit and back to Earth. But fall.
According to the US Air Force Command, the Chinese rocket crashed while returning to Earth at 12:45 a.m. ET over the Indian Ocean near Malaysia.
On Saturday, several Twitter accounts started sharing videos of the rocket breaking up in the sky over Malaysia, but it was not confirmed whether the video actually showed the remains of the rocket or if it was something else.
According to the information available so far, large rocket boosters are so large that they usually do not burn up completely during the process of falling to the ground, and more than 40% of their debris can reach the ground, especially Thermally resistant equipment such as tanks and engine parts.
This debris can pose a threat to human life and property on the ground.
Shortly after 2:00 p.m. Saturday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson released a statement via email and Twitter criticizing China for not providing better information about the expected trajectory of its rocket's descent back to Earth. went
In his statement, Nelson said: 'All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices and do their part to share this type of information in advance to assess the risk of potential debris impacts.
Confident predictions can be made, especially for heavy-lift spacecraft like Long March B-5, which can pose a significant threat to human life and property.'
"Doing so is critical to the responsible use of space and ensuring the safety of people here on Earth," he added.
This is the third time that China has allowed a rocket to enter Earth's atmosphere uncontrolled.
Earlier in May 2021, another rocket carrying part of a Chinese space station was left untethered to orbit Earth once every 90 minutes before breaking up over the Indian Ocean about a week later.
In 2020, another Long March rocket crashed into the Atlantic Ocean just 13 minutes before hitting New York City.
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