Chinese rocket debris crashes to Earth: Long March 5B videos, updates, map and trajectory
Chinese rocket crashes to Earth: updates and reaction
Chinese rocket news
Headlines:
- This is the fifth time in three years that debris from a Chinese rocket has fallen back down and landed on Earth (see below for details of those).
- The wreckage of Long March 5B has fallen in the South Pacific, according to US and EU authorities.
- Path of re-entry included parts of the US, Central and South America, southern Europe, Africa, southeast Asia and Australia.
- This latest Long March-5B booster rocket was launched on Monday and was deemed to be 'out of control'.
Long March 5B decay confirmed
Final confirmation from the European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking service.
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China got lucky or played the odds?
Following the return to Earth of the Chinese rocket remains, astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics, Jonathan McDowell, has likened the 'uncontrolled' decision to a game of Snake Eyes.
But given the odds, it would seem China are happy to take their chances.
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Rocket footage over Spain
The Objective has shared a video on its social media accounts showing the rocket as it was sighted from the ground.
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Rocket re-entry confirmed
According to the China Manned Space, on the back of the USSC communication, the remnants of China's most powerful rocket, the Long March 5B, re-entered the atmosphere on Friday at 6:08 p.m. Beijing time,
Most of the remnants, the agency said, burnt up during re-entry and remaining pieces landed in area with coordinates 101.9 degrees west, 9.9 degrees north.
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It left on Halloween from Southern China, taking the final module of China’s space station into orbit.
The Long March 5 rocket, known as Changzheng 5 in Chinese, is named after the famous ‘Long March’ conducted by Mao Zedong’s Chinese guerillas in the 1930s. The encircled army managed to escape with a sliver of its forces, enabling the Chinese communists the rebuild and defeat the Kuomintang national government in the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Our Oliver Povey has pulled out his abacus, compass and protractor, to give you a rough idea of where it may hit.
Rocket warning: advice to pilots
"Our flight is diverting to Santander because of a Chinese rocket," is all Ian Darke and his fellow passengers heard earlier today.
Something he suggests should be expanded on to aleviate any concerns.
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Spain's LaLiga Santander, one of the biggest leagues in the world, was directly, if mildly, impacted by the ‘out of control’ booster debris risk.
You'll be glad to know that the Athletic team did make the journey for the Friday night game, but with a few puzzled faces on board.
Chinese rocket debris: recent history
We reported on the last time this happened back in July, with the rocket debris finally coming down over the Indian Ocean, as well as on Indonesia and Malaysia.
In March of this year we also saw a sizeable amount of Chinese rocket metal landing on the Moon.
Prior to that we had the incident in May 2021 when it also landed in the Indian Ocean, off the coasts of Sri Lanka and India.
We also had a piece of a rocket land in the Ivory Coast in Africa in 2020.
On China's lack of rocket control
Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations.
It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris.
Space-X can, so why can't China?
One of the questions we were asked the last time this happened was why China couldn't safely land their rocket boosters once they'd served their propulsion needs.
We've seen other nations ensure they crash into open and vacated expanses of water out at sea, while Space-X in particular has shown how to gently touch them down at a specified safe location.
The truth is that they should be able to, and that has seen officials around the world condemn them for their actions.
What are the odds of getting hit by China's rocket?
When I said before about the chances of someone getting hurt by this debris being small, here's another take on it.
Ted Muelhaupt, who is a consultant in the chief engineer’s office at the Aerospace Corporation, has said that "you've got far better odds of winning the lottery tonight than you are getting hit by this object."
"The risk to an individual is six per 10 trillion. That's a really small number."
So, instead of looking up and worrying, maybe you should be looking down and picking your numbers as someone dreams of hitting the more-than $1 billion jackpot.
Reminder: lottery jackpot wins are also very long odds...just not as long as getting hit on the head by a stray Chinese rocket.
Spain closes some airspace due to Chinese rocket risk
It should be said from the off that the risk to human life is very, very small in a situation like this, but small is not zero.
On Friday morning, Spanish authorities closed off some of the country's airspace as it was deemed possible that it could interfere with some flight patterns.
Below you can see how the coordinates have changed within the space of an hour.
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Chinese rocket debris falling to Earth
Hello and welcome to our coverage of yet another occasion where an out of control Chinese rocket booster is headed back to somewhere on Earth. We'd clearly rather not have to do this.
It is still not yet known where the debris of the 22 ton booster will land but you'll be able to track the trajectory here and as big news happens we'll keep you posted.