The\u00a0debris<\/a>\u00a0is set to return to the\u00a0Earth\u2019s atmosphere\u00a0sometime on\u00a0May 8\u00a0or\u00a0May 9.\u00a0The Pentagon expects it to land at around 11pm GMT on Saturday but\u00a0is allowing for\u00a0a nine-hour margin of error either side.<\/p>\n Space<\/a>\u00a0agencies around the world are anxiously following the rocket\u2019s\u00a0uncontrolled\u00a0descent.\u00a0 The White House said on Wednesday that NASA was doing everything it could to track the remains of the rocket.<\/p>\n The Long March 5B took off last April to install the first part\u00a0of a Chinese space station that is under construction. The parts of this rocket\u00a0that are now plummeting to Earth\u00a0have been orbiting the planet at more than 27,000 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n It is one of the largest forms of space debris to return to Earth \u2013 about 30 metres long and weighing more than 20 tonnes. The debris trail could land as far north as New York, Madrid or Beijing and as far south as the New Zealand capital Wellington, Harvard-based astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Reuters this week.<\/p>\n Debris from another Long March rocket landed on some buildings in the Ivory Coast in 2020, causing damage but no injuries or deaths.<\/p>\n US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday that the US military had no plans to shoot down the oncoming debris.\u00a0\u201cWe have the capability to do a lot of things, but we don\u2019t have a plan to shoot it down,\u201d he told journalists.<\/p>\n Hopefully, he said,\u00a0the rocket will land \u201cin a place where it won\u2019t harm anyone\u00a0[\u2026 in]\u00a0the ocean, or someplace like that\u201d.<\/p>\n China has said that the risks are minimal because most of the rocket components will probably be destroyed\u00a0upon\u00a0re-entry. \u201cThe probability of causing harm […] on the ground is extremely low,\u201d Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told journalists on Friday.<\/p>\n Many experts\u00a0agree<\/a>\u00a0that most of the debris will probably be destroyed by the friction as it enters the\u00a0Earth\u2019s atmosphere at high speed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most likely event will see any debris surviving the intense heat of re-entry falling into the oceans or uninhabited areas,\u201d specialist publication\u00a0Space News<\/a>\u00a0wrote. Nevertheless, \u201cthe risk remains of damage to people or property\u201d.<\/p>\n \u2018Negligent on China\u2019s part\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Given the\u00a0sheer\u00a0size of the rocket\u00a0fragments,\u00a0some\u00a0experts\u00a0say there is a significant risk that a sizeable chunk could fall to Earth instead of burning up in the atmosphere.\u00a0\u201cA rough rule of thumb\u201d\u00a0suggests that\u00a0\u201cbetween 20% and 40% of the dry mass can survive\u201d,\u00a0Holger Krag, head of the European Space Agency\u2019s space debris department, told\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n This would be enough to cause major damage if it landed on an inhabited area. At present,\u00a0the most likely place for it to land\u00a0is in a long band around the equator \u2013 encompassing the east coast of Africa to the west coast of South America, the Pacific and Indian oceans as well as a chunk of northern Australia \u2013\u00a0according to\u00a0Aerospace Corp<\/a>, a California-based NGO that advises the US government on space matters.<\/p>\n It is difficult to calculate precisely where it will land because the speed at which it is moving means that the slightest error in calculating its point of entry into the atmosphere could lead to a difference of tens of thousands of kilometres.<\/p>\n All this could have been avoided by redesigning the rocket. In the 1970s, US and Soviet rockets of a similar size to this first stage of the Long March 5B went crashing down to earth \u2013 but now the technology has advanced to such a point that space agencies can design the central part of their rocket in such a way that it doesn\u2019t end up orbiting around earth.<\/p>\n Abandoned spacecraft\u00a0tend to be\u00a0set adrift far\u00a0from the\u00a0Earth\u2019s\u00a0atmosphere or orbiting another mass such as the moon. Remote controls on rocket engines can allow people on Earth to manage their descent\u00a0so that\u00a0they land\u00a0in the ocean,\u00a0far from inhabited areas. These kinds of operations often ensure that it lands in the vast seas of the South Pacific, between New Zealand and South America.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s bad is that it\u2019s really negligent on China\u2019s part. Things more than ten tonnes we don\u2019t let them fall out of the sky uncontrolled deliberately,\u201d\u00a0astrophysicist\u00a0McDowell told\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n This problem is likely to get worse as a growing number of\u00a0non-state actors\u00a0get involved in\u00a0space exploration;\u00a0more and more countries and private companies are sending up satellites and rockets, leaving space debris in their wake. There\u00a0are\u00a0currently more than 9,000 tonnes of space debris in orbit\u00a0\u2013 without any accurate maps\u00a0of where it is headed.<\/p>\n This article was translated from the\u00a0original in French<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-08-at-3.15.06-PM.png\")
A Long March 5B rocket, carrying China’s Tianhe space station core module, lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China’s Hainan province on April 29, 2021. \u00a9 STR, AFP<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
Text by: S\u00e9bastian SEIBT
\nFrance24<\/p>\n
Debris from parts of China\u2019s Long March 5B rocket is set to crash down to Earth this weekend \u2013 but space agencies do not know when or where.<\/p>\n
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