China’s Long March-5B rocket disintegrates over the Indian Ocean
The uncontrolled descent of Long March-5B will ultimately not have created any damage. A large part of the Chinese launcher disintegrated above the Indian Ocean this Saturday, July 30. 6 days after its launch intended to take the second module of the Chinese space station into orbit. If the Chinese space agency has not yet been able to design a rocket that returns to land on its launch pad (like its private competitor SpaceX), at least its engineers know how to calculate a trajectory: these The latter had specified the exact coordinates of the impact zone, i.e. in the Sulu Sea and 57 km off the island of Palawan (Philippines).
meteor spotted in kuching! #jalanbako 31/7/2022 pic.twitter.com/ff8b2zI2sw
— Nazri sulaiman (@nazriacai) July 30, 2022
Finally, there will be no question of impact since the rocket completely disintegrated above the Indian Ocean. This happy conclusion follows a somewhat tense sequence between Washington and Beijing, the American authorities reproaching their counterparts for not having provided them with information on the descent of the machine. Bill Nelsonthe current head of NASA was very firm in recalling that ” All nations conducting space activities should adhere to best practices”which incidentally implied that this was not the case for China…
This isn’t the first time a Long March rocket has returned to Earth out of control. in 2020, a large piece of launcher had crashed in Ivory Coast, causing only material damage.
