Out-of-control Chinese launch vehicle could crash to Earth on Saturday

On April 29, the main module of the future Chinese space station Tiangong was launched from the Wenchang Cosmodrome in Hainan, LiveScience reports. It was delivered into orbit by the Long March 5B launch vehicle. After the delivery of the module, the rocket was supposed to make a controlled entry into the Earth's atmosphere, but this did not happen. Soon, ground-based radars found it tumbling around the Earth at a speed of more than 25,490 km / h. The space object was named 2021-035B. Its dimensions are 30 meters long, 5 meters wide, and weighs about 20 tons.

Long March 5B's previous flight ended in May 2020 with most of the launch vehicle burning up, but some of the debris flew back to Earth. Pieces of metal landed in Côte d'Ivoire, damaging several buildings and luckily not killing anyone. This time, history may repeat itself.

Scientists assume that the rocket will return on Saturday, May 8, but the exact landing site has not yet been named. Now the rocket is moving at approximately the latitude of New York, Madrid, southern Chile, New Zealand Wellington. It is hoped that most of it will burn up in the atmosphere before impacting the Earth, but surviving debris could land anywhere in this range. It is good if it is the ocean or uninhabited areas. Worse if the rocket hits populated areas.

By 2030, China aims to become a major space power and compete on equal terms with the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency. To do this, the Chinese are building an advanced space station in orbit - Tiangong, or "Heavenly Palace". By the end of 2022, the Chinese plan to launch two other main modules, four manned spacecraft and four cargo ships.

Long March 5B is the heaviest object to make an uncontrolled entry into the Earth's atmosphere in the past 30 years. Before the collapse, the rocket weighed 19.6 tons. The last such case was the fall in 1991 over Argentina of the 43-ton Soviet space station Salyut-7.