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
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