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China Space

Tons of Chinese Rocket Debris Have Crashed into the Indian Ocean (space.com) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the down-to-earth dept.
The 25-ton core stage of a Long March 5B rocket "reentered Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean this afternoon," reports Space.com, citing an announcement on Twitter from the U.S. Space Command. Mission managers didn't screw anything up; this end-of-life scenario is built into the Long March 5B's design, to the consternation of exploration advocates and much of the broader spaceflight community. This disposal strategy is reckless, critics say, given that the big rocket doesn't burn up completely upon reentry.

Indeed, 5.5 tons to 9.9 tons (5 to 9 metric tons) of the Long March 5B likely survived all the way to the ground today, experts with The Aerospace Corporation's Center for Orbital Reentry and Debris Studies have estimated. And it's possible that falling rocket chunks caused some injuries or infrastructure damage today, given where the Long March 5B reentered. One observer appeared to capture the rocket's breakup from Kuching, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, for example, posting video of the dramatic event on Twitter. "The video from Kuching implies it was high in the atmosphere at that time — any debris would land hundreds of km further along track, near Sibu, Bintulu or even Brunei," astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said via Twitter today. It's "unlikely but not impossible" that one or more chunks hit a population center, he added in another tweet....

"What really should have happened is, there should have been some fuel left on board for this to be a controlled reentry," Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow at the California-based tracking company LeoLabs, said Thursday (July 28) during a Long March 5B reentry discussion that The Aerospace Corporation livestreamed on Twitter. "That would be the responsible thing to do...."

This was the third uncontrolled fall for a Long March 5B core stage to date.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson also released a critical statement today pointing out that China "did not share specific trajectory information as their Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth." All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices, and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property.
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Tons of Chinese Rocket Debris Have Crashed into the Indian Ocean More

Tons of Chinese Rocket Debris Have Crashed into the Indian Ocean

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  • Wait wait wait (Score:2, Informative)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

    Did anyone double-check the Australian Outback?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

      Did anyone double-check the Australian Outback?

      Couldn't afford international airfare, so I just went to the one down the road from me. No Chinese rocket debris to be seen, but I got a pretty decent bloomin' onion and a steak.

  • Space debris from US okay but not from China (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EreIamJH ( 180023 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @09:18PM (#62748168)

    Just few posts earlier slashdot has a story A Large Chunk of Rocket Space Debris Landed in Australia [slashdot.org] about US space debris hitting actual farm land without a hint of criticism about the danger. Contrast that free pass with this current article which goes out of its way to find someone to criticise China for impacting the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

    Just say'in.

    • Re: Space debris from US okay but not from China (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kyogreex ( 2700775 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @09:48PM (#62748212)

      AFAIK that was a freak accident. The pieces are meant to burn up in the atmosphere but didnâ(TM)t, and happened to end up in Australia.

      With this rocket the pieces are expected to make it to the ground in large pieces.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        That's how many countries do launches. They set an exclusion area out to sea where discarded stages of the rocket will fall, or the whole thing might come down if there is a fault or they need to abort.

        The whining here is just about the particular bit of ocean they need to use for it.

    • Re:Space debris from US okay but not from China (Score:4, Insightful)

      by drhamad ( 868567 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @10:12PM (#62748234)
      There's a huge difference between an accidental/rare error, and a planned system.

      • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

        There's a huge difference between an accidental/rare error, and a planned system.

        Not really. In either case, the probability of hitting a human is infinitesimal.

        Any plausible property damage is far less than the cost of engineering a "safe" reentry.

        In the end, it made no difference, since both impacted.

    • I don't think the US withheld any data about what was going on there, but, once again, I don't have access to the alternative facts some of you people do.

    • Re:Space debris from US okay but not from China (Score:5, Insightful)

      by robbak ( 775424 ) on Sunday July 31, 2022 @12:08AM (#62748334) Homepage

      The size of this rocket makes it a much more dangerous event. This is an entire first stage - something larger than an entire Falcon 9 rocket - coming back down. Large pressure vessels and entire multi-tonne engines will survived re-entry and have reached the earth's surface largely in tact. Things that would destroy a building if it hit it.

      The debris from the trunk section from a Dragon mission - a few pieces of fairly light carbon fibre - are a different matter. We also understand that the reason they don't do a controlled re-entry of the Dragon's trunk section is for the safety of the people on board the Dragon capsule.

    • Even worse, poor Werner von Braun got raked over the coals when bits of his rockets landed in London, Antwerp, and a few other places. It wasn't even his department, where they come down.

    • Contrast that free pass with this current article which goes out of its way to find someone to criticise China for impacting the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

      And when a terrorist drives a bus into a pedestrian zone the criticism is slightly different to when someone falls asleep at the wheel and causes an accident.

      Did you notice how no one really expected a piece of SpaceX rocket to hit anything on July 9th, and in fact the piece they suspect is one that usually burns on re-entry Contrast that to every man and their dog knowing that the Chinese were going to drop a rocket back to earth but no one could tell where.

      That is the difference. Not everything that happe

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by waspleg ( 316038 )

      All of their post history is pro-CCP bullshit and anti-US posts. There hadn't been as much wumao bullshit, but I guess the CCP is mad at Pelosi for going to Taiwan and other assorted butthurt - so they're back.

  • Wow (Score:4, Informative)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @10:40PM (#62748266) Journal

    The "shooting star" actually looks pretty cool [twitter.com].

  • Just another day in paradise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LeeLynx ( 6219816 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @11:01PM (#62748290)

    significant risk of loss of life

    Yeah, not really something China has ever really considered high on the priority list. It's not like there are voters to be concerned about.

    • There are elections in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Yes, and very democratic [hongkongfp.com] ones

        • This article seems to be addressing (I believe recent) tendency for the CCP to declare, "We should be the ones who get to declare what democracy means, not foreigners."

          Other than that, it seems to be built on historical revisionism (or at least, built on an unclear clear view of history). For example, Xuanzang translated a bunch of documents from Indian languages into Chinese at the start of the Tang dynasty, with the approval and support of the Chinese emperor. Here is a dramatized example of an ancient Ch [youtu.be]

        • btw Turn on subtitles for that youtube link.

      • Yes, and you can vote for any candidate from the ruling party that you like. Does your mommy know you are using the internet, honey?

        • Well, you clearly didn't read the link.

          • From the link: "The competitive nature of the elections is highly constrained by the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly on power in China, limitations on free speech, and government interference with the elections." It appears YOU didn't read the link.

            • Learn to read.

              "Under the electoral law of 1 July 1979, nomination of candidates for direct elections (in counties, townships, etc.) can be made by the CCP, the various other political parties, mass organizations, or any voter seconded by at least 10 other voters."

              • Yep, people who aren't afraid of prison can nominate all the anti-CCP candidates they like. Other people who aren't afraid of prison might even vote for them.

                You still never answered me, I definitely think your mommy or daddy should be aware you are talking to strangers on the 'puter.

                • Yep, people who aren't afraid of prison can nominate all the anti-CCP candidates they like.

                  You are implying that people who try to nominate a candidate will face prison time, but you don't have a citation. Actually, what you say is false.

                  Your problem is reading comprehension. Definitely learn how to read better.

                  • Look, have a grown-up help you search for 'china' and 'dissidents' and you'll have no shortage of citations.

                    I'll get you started with this story [bbc.com] about just how free Chinese citizens are to take on the CCP in elections. You might also check out this one. [nytimes.com] Perhaps you could also have a look at this one. [nytimes.com] Here's another one [nchrd.org] you might be able to get someone better educated to explain to you. Hell, here's a collection of incidents [cecc.gov] you could peruse demonstrated just how the CCP treats those who would challenge t
      • Yes, we should say "multiparty democracy", but usually that is understood because a single-party "democracy" is not really a democracy per se, since the democratic governing structures like legislatures and courts are just trappings to implement decisions made outside of the government by the single party in power. Many authoritarian regimes, including China, use democracy as a facade in that way.

  • This sort of critical press release is bound to backfire on NASA, which also has uncontrolled debris entry.

    • Name one, since Skylab (which was a motivating event for the whole de-orbit safely development).

  • If the reentry display was seen over Kuching, reentry may have *started* over the Indian Ocean, but the debris would have landed to the east, ie, in the Pacific Ocean. Sulu Sea, it's been reported.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      If the reentry display was seen over Kuching,

      It probably hit the water near Kerplunk.

  • Western launches are held to a standard that must ensure a chance of less than 1E-6 or something that someone dies. The chinese either estimate the chances of someone getting hurt by this falling rocket low enough to satisfy that, or they are using a slightly different number.

    It is not black and white. If a western rocket scientist says he thinks it is unsafe, that means he thinks the chances of someone getting hurt is larger than that 1 in a million. Still the chances are pretty slim that anybody is going

  • It's racist to call it chinese. I'm sure lots of parts came from other countries. You should still buy stuff in San Francisco Chinatown.

  • cant wait for chinese world order so a ythk g can bedisposed anywhere puk gai winnie the poop

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