The US Space Administration confirmed the rocket’s re-entry at 12:45 p.m. ET, but it remains unclear where its debris landed. In a translated post on Weibo, China’s Manned Space Agency said the rocket re-entered near the same area and that most of it burned up on the fall. Uncertainty about where the missile would land rippled across the globe On July 24, China used a Long March 5B rocket to launch a laboratory module to the unfinished Tiangong space station. Unlike most rockets, the Long March 5B propels its first stage into orbit upon delivery of its payload. This piece, which is more than 100 feet long and weighs more than 22 tons, orbits the Earth for a short time until it falls to Earth, with no way to control its movement. Uncertainty about where the missile would land rippled across the globe last week, as predictions had the missile landing anywhere from Mexico to the southern tip of Africa. This is China’s third Long March 5B launch, marking the third out-of-control landing. In 2020, China used a Long March 5B to bring the Tiangong core unit into space. Debris from the missile landed in Ivory Coast and while no injuries were reported, there was some structural damage. Last year, China launched its first lab unit on a Long March 5B, parts of which ended up being thrown into the Indian Ocean. The re-entry appears to have been observed from Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia. Debris will land in northern Borneo, possibly Brunei. [corrected] https://t.co/sX6m1XMYoO — Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) July 30, 2022 Malaysian Twitter users recorded the apparent re-entry of the missile, with some believing it to be a meteorite. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, believes debris from the rocket could end up near Sibu, Bintulu or Brunei – three cities located along the northern coast of Borneo – but he believes it is “unlikely” to land in a populated area. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson responded to the uncontrolled landing in a statement on Twitter. “The People’s Republic of China did not share specific trajectory information as its Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth,” Nelson writes. “All space transport nations should follow established best practices and do their part to share this kind of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy lift vehicles like the Long March 5B, which involve a significant risk of loss of life and property”. Unfortunately, this is not the last out-of-control rocket to fall to Earth. China plans to launch its third and final Tiangong module using a Long March 5B in October, and will use the rocket once more to launch a telescope into space in 2023.
