The core stage of yet another Chinese Long March 5B rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth this week after delivering the third and final module to China’s fledgling space station.
The roughly 25-ton (23 metric tons) rocket stage, which launched Oct. 31 to deliver the Mengtian laboratory cabin module to the Tiangong space station, is predicted to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday, Nov. 5 at 11:51 p.m. EDT, give or take 14 hours, according to researchers at The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies.
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Exactly where the rocket will land is unknown, but the possible debris field includes the U.S., Central, and South America, Africa, India, China, Southeast Asia, and Australia, according to The Aerospace Corporation, a U.S. government-funded nonprofit research center based in California. This is the fourth time in two years that China has disposed of its rockets in an uncontrolled manner. The previous crash landings saw metallic objects rain down upon villages in the Ivory Coast, debris land in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives, and rocket chunks crash dangerously close to villages in Borneo.
more at scientificamerican.com
