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Massive Chinese rocket core to make uncontrolled reentry over Earth in coming days

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The same type of rocket crashed into West Africa and the Atlantic Ocean in May 2020, possibly damaging an inhabited village.

The huge, 100-foot-tall (30 meters) core of a Chinese rocket is tumbling wildly through low-Earth orbit and could make an uncontrolled reentry through the atmosphere in the coming days, according to news reports.

The core belongs to a Long March 5B rocket (a version of China's largest rocket), which successfully launched a module for China's planned Tianhe space station into orbit on Wednesday (April 28). Following the module's deployment, the rocket core was expected to make maneuvers for a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere, according to SpaceNews — however, that didn't happen.

Ground-based radars soon detected the rocket core tumbling through orbit, oscillating between altitudes of 106 and 231 miles (170 and 372 kilometers) above Earth's surface and traveling at more than 15,840 mph (25,490 km/h). (The U.S. military designated the object 2021-035B, and you can monitor its progress around the planet here.)

More at https://www.livescience.com/chinese-long-march-rocket-uncontrolled-reentry-2021.html
 
Damn! So, there's no saying where that could land then and who would be impacted and how many people. Thanks China!
 
Looks like Saturday is the Day of Doom. Heh. The day it is supposed to enter the atmosphere. China says it will burn up, but experts are saying some bits will make it to the ground.

The non-profit, federally funded Aerospace Corp has said it expects the debris to hit the Pacific near the Equator after passing over eastern US cities. The orbit covers a swath of the planet from New Zealand to Newfoundland. The US defence department expects it to fall to Earth on Saturday though where it will hit “cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its re-entry”, the Pentagon said.
China’s space agency has yet to say whether the rocket is being controlled or will make an out-of-control descent. But the Global Times newspaper, published by the Chinese Communist party, has claimed the rocket’s “thin-skinned” aluminium-alloy exterior will easily burn up in the atmosphere, posing an extremely remote risk to people.
Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at Harvard University, has predicted some pieces of the rocket will survive re-entry and that it would be the “equivalent of a small plane crash scattered over 100 miles”.
 
Why can't they do something to move the core into space and out of orbit?
 
Why can't they do something to move the core into space and out of orbit?
I imagine there’s no fuel or control mech left. As I understood it it was the lift rocket and they calculated incorrectly driving it higher into orbit than the planned. Damage was done.
This is not nearly as dramatic as their space station they had to decay out of orbit several years ago.
 
I imagine there’s no fuel or control mech left. As I understood it it was the lift rocket and they calculated incorrectly driving it higher into orbit than the planned. Damage was done.
This is not nearly as dramatic as their space station they had to decay out of orbit several years ago.
So, there's no way to attach another spacecraft or rocket or something to it and pull it out of orbit? Or some how blast it out of orbit? Similar to what they might do if an asteroid was approaching.
 
No nothing like that I’m aware of.
be kind of like deflecting a bullet once fired.
have to have a platform in space to do it to start with.
the US has carried out successfully shoot downs of purposed in bound space vehicles. But this is all pretty much developing tech.

here’s a link to a re-entery tracker
Some time in about 7-8 hours from now.
 
No nothing like that I’m aware of.
be kind of like deflecting a bullet once fired.
have to have a platform in space to do it to start with.
the US has carried out successfully shoot downs of purposed in bound space vehicles. But this is all pretty much developing tech.

here’s a link to a re-entery tracker
Some time in about 7-8 hours from now.
Oh I see now. And you forgot the link.
 
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