Chinese ‘Long March’ rocket reenters Earth’s atmosphere uncontrolled, disintegrates over Texas
According to reports, a piece of Chinese space junk that re-entered Earth’s atmosphere last week disintegrated over Texas.
US Naval Institute News reported that a second-stage booster from a Chinese rocket launched on June 23, 2022, burned up over the Lone Star State on March 8 to put three military surveillance satellites into orbit.
A Long March-5B Y4 rocket carrying the Mengtian Lab Module for China’s under-construction space station Tiangong lifts off from the Wenchang spacecraft launch site in China’s Hainan province on Oct. 31, 2022. (China Daily via Reuters)
Defense officials told the publication that the missile was a Long March rocket, and its four-ton components that were floating in orbit re-entered the atmosphere at 17,000 mph before disintegrating.
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The space junk, as NORAD described it, was in low orbit before falling back to Earth, and military officials said the debris field could extend for hundreds of miles.
The US Space Command confirmed with USNI that the People’s Republic of China CZ-2D rocket body re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the southern region of the continent at approximately 8:30 PM MST.
WENCHANG, CHINA – APRIL 29: A Long March-5B Y2 rocket carrying the main module of China’s space station, Tianhe, lifts off from the Wenchang spacecraft launch site on April 29, 2021 in Wenchang, Hainan Province, China . ((Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images))
“It was an uncontrolled entry, which does not mean that its orbit decayed and degenerated naturally,” Space Command said. “This type of behavior reinforces the need for better international norms regarding high-risk controlled re-admissions.”
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The US Space Command and the China Manned Space Agency did not immediately respond to questions from Fox News Digital about the rocket booster’s re-entry in North America.
China has been criticized in the past for uncontrolled re-entry. In November, NASA reprimanded China for taking unnecessary risks with the uncontrolled rocket stage reentry of the Long March 5 rocket, saying the country did not share specific trajectory information needed to predict landing areas and minimize risk.
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China has had at least five uncontrolled entries of its space equipment since May 2020.
Texas has a population of 29 million, including several major cities including Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, and El Paso. The Chinese rocket burned up in an uninhabited area.
