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Long March 5B missile remains fell into the Indian Ocean
Author:Mariusz Dasiewicz
According to Chinese state media, the remains of the largest Chinese missile fell into the Indian Ocean on Sunday, and most of its components were destroyed after entering the Earth's atmosphere again,
Part of Long March 5B (Long March) reentered the atmosphere at 10:24 Beijing time (02:24 GMT) and fell into the Indian Ocean, west of the Maldives archipelago. Most of the remains burned in the atmosphere – the Chinese space engineering office reported.
Last year, parts of Long March 5B's first flight fell on Côte d'Ivoire, damaging several buildings without causing casualties.
According to experts, the probability of hitting a populated area on land was low. However, uncertainty about the decay of the orbital rocket and China's previous failure to control the return flights of the rockets caused concern.
During the flight of the rocket astrophysicist from Harvard Jonathan McDowell told Reuter that the potential crash zone of the rocket could be located in the north of New York City, Madrid or Beijing, as well as in the south of Chile and Wellington, New Zealand.
Since the big fragments of NASA space station Skylab fell from orbit in July 1979 and landed in Australia, most countries trying to avoid such uncontrolled events.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that a larger portion of the orbiting fragment of the rocket would burn when entering the Earth's atmosphere again and it is highly unlikely that the remains would cause any damage on Earth.
Weighting from 17 to 22 tons and measuring about 30 metres, the object was the main member of the Long March 5B missile, which was launched from the Chinese cosmody on April 29 to bring into orbit one of the key modules of the future Chinese space station Tiangong.
Usually, the first member of a space missile falls off shortly after takeoff and immediately falls to the ground. In the case of Long March 5B, this part disengaged from the rest of the vehicle as soon as it was taken out into Earth's orbit, making the element of the rocket circulate around the Earth for several more days, wasting its speed and now in an uncontrollable way it will return to it, explains the Aerospace Corporation on its pages.
Source: PAP
