Chinese rocket: A fragment falls in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives islands

The ‘Long March’ ended shortly before 4.30 am this Sunday (Spanish time) at some point in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. The 20 tons of Chinese space junk almost completely disintegrated during its entry into the atmosphere, but some fragment did reach Earth, luckily without consequences. That is what the Chinese authorities say, whose space agency reported this morning that “According to monitoring and analysis, at 10:24 am (0224 GMT) on May 9, 2021 the first stage of the Long March 5B carrier rocket has re-entered the atmosphere”, providing the coordinates of a point in the Indian Ocean Near the Maldives, China had insisted for days that the out-of-control spin of the Long March 5B rocket segment, which launched the first module of its space station into orbit on April 29, was not going to pose any danger. , the US space surveillance network, based on US military data, also confirmed the entry into the atmosphere: “Everyone who follows the return of #LongMarcha5B can relax. The rocket is down, “Space Track tweeted.” We believe the rocket crashed into the Indian Ocean, but we are awaiting official data from @ 18SPCS, “he added in another tweet, referring to a US space control squadron based in Vandenberg. , in California, which “will not know the precise location until after” the landing. The fall of the segment in the Indian Ocean gives reason to the experts who said that there was a high probability that it fell into the sea because the planet is made up of a 70 % of water.However, the ‘Long March’ of this rocket fragment has had half the planet in suspense before the possibility, although remote, that it would fall in some populated area. “The probability of causing damage to air activities or (to people , construction) on land is extremely low, “said Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry last week. However, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hinted this week that China had not planned carefully enough. the rocket launch, although he assured that the US had no intention of destroying the out-of-control fragment; in fact, in 2020, debris from another Long March rocket crashed over villages in Côte d’Ivoire, causing damage but without leaving injuries. Likewise, the Tiangong-1 space laboratory disintegrated upon re-entry into the atmosphere in 2018, two years after it ceased to function, although the Chinese authorities denied having lost the cont To avoid a repeat of this situation, experts have recommended a redesign of the Long March 5B rocket, which lacks the ability to control its descent from orbit. An entry (into the atmosphere) over the ocean has always been statistically the most likely, “tweeted Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer.” It appears that China has won its bet (unless we hear of falling shares in the Maldives). But it was still reckless, “he said.” The fact that a ton of metal chips fell on the Earth at hundreds of km / h is not good practice, and China should review the design of the Long March 5B missions to avoid this. “He added. China has invested billions of dollars in its space program for several decades.The Asian country launched the first module of its space station into orbit on April 29, thanks to the Long March 5B carrier rocket, the most powerful and imposing Chinese launcher. The Asian giant sent its first astronaut into space in 2003. A Chinese probe landed on the far side of the Moon in 2019, a world first. Last year, it brought back samples of the Moon and completed Beidu, its satellite navigation system (competitor to American GPS). And in the coming weeks, China is forecasting pose a small wheeled robot on Mars. In addition, the Chinese space agency announced its intention to build a lunar base with Russia.