On April 29, China launched Long March 5B into orbit with the intention to carry the first module of China’s new space station. This launch was set for disaster. From April 29 to May 9, 2021, the 20 ton giant was orbiting around our atmosphere with an expected “unpredictable” reentry. Luckily, it was estimated that the chances of the rocket collapsing on an individual was 1 in several trillion.
Often launch companies plan their upper stages to restart their engines at the conclusion of their flights, in order to lead the rockets to a safe re-entry over a distant plain of ocean. Rather than building the massive Long March 5B core component to be removed from orbit using engines or thrusters, Chinese engineers decided to leave the rocket in space until its mission was completed.
Image: Global Times
With the technology present today, how could we not predict where this rocket would land? It is practically impossible due to the large digit of unknown in estimating the impact of atmospheric drag on the central module. Earth's expanding and contracting atmosphere makes it even more difficult to predict where the rocket will crash. "It will be one of the largest instances of uncontrolled reentry of a spacecraft and could potentially land on an inhabited area" SpaceNews said.
On May 9, 2021, the rocket safely re-entered earth, with zero damage. The rocket re entered the atmosphere at about 17,000 mph (28,000 km per hour), and the majority of the design burned up. A piece of the rocket landed in the Indian Ocean, near Maldives; longitude 72.47 degrees east and latitude 2.65 degrees north. The next space station-related release from China is planned sometime in the next few weeks, with a Long March 7 rocket launching the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft to join Tianhe in orbit. The crewed Shenzhou-12 mission is expected to launch in June. There will be no unregulated reentries of first stages in either mission. China intends to deploy two more Long March 5B rockets in 2022, each carrying two experiment modules.
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