Debris from China’s space rocket may hit Earth in next few days – Times of India

Debris from a Chinese rocket is set to crash to Earth sometime over the next few days, with the debris likely to land over a large part of the globe. part of a Long March 5B Rocket China, which was launched on July 24, will make an uncontrolled reentry around July 31, according to Aerospace Corp, a California-based nonprofit that receives US funding.
According to aerospace predictions, the potential debris zone includes the Americas as well as Africa, Australia, Brazil, India and Southeast Asia. Concerns over China’s re-entry and its impact are being dismissed, however, with state-backed media saying the warnings are just “sour grapes” angered by the country’s development as a space power.
The Global Times newspaper quoted an expert as saying, “The US is running out of ways to block China’s development in the aerospace sector, so only smear and defamation are left for it.”
The landing of the booster, which weighs 23 metric tons, follows a series of uncontrolled accidents that critics say highlights the risks of China’s escalating space race with the US. “Due to the uncontrolled nature of its descent, there is a non-zero probability of remaining debris landing in a populated area – more than 88% of the world’s population lives under the debris footprint of potential re-entry,” Aerospace said on Tuesday. ” In May 2021, fragments of another Long March rocket landed in the Indian Ocean, raising concerns that the Chinese space agency had lost control of it. “It is clear that China has failed to meet the standards responsible for space debris,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in Beijing on Wednesday that China was closely following the booster’s re-entry from this week’s launch. “It is customary for international practice for the upper stages of rockets to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere,” Zhao said. “Since the research and development phase of the space engineering program, it has been designed with the idea of ​​debris mitigation and orbit return.” bloomberg