A huge piece of space debris from a Chinese rocket is forecast to crash to Earth on Friday.
The rocket part of 21 tons is the core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket, which delivered the third and final piece to China’s Tiangong space station on 31 October.
Usually when discarded rocket parts re-enter the atmosphere, they are designed to do it in a particular place, crashing into predetermined parts of the ocean. However, this chunk of Long March 5B is undergoing a runaway re-entry, meaning it could land anywhere.
“Uncontrolled entry means that there are no measures in place to ensure that the remains of this large debris object land in an unpopulated area. This is because the core of the first stage of these CZ-5B rockets actually reaches orbit, so their re-entry point can’t be controlled,” Ralph Cooney, professor of advanced materials at the University of Auckland in New York, told Newsweek. New Zealand.
Luciano Anselmo and Carmen Pardini, researchers at the Flight Dynamics Laboratory Space in Pisa, Italy, told the outlet: “In the specific case of the Long March 5B core stage, although there was probably some spare propellant left in the tanks, to be used as a margin for contingencies during the launch phase: already it cannot be used because the stage’s rocket engines cannot be restarted in space. They can be powered up only once on the launch pad.”
“Therefore, the core stage is currently dead, unmaneuverable, and wobbly,” they continued. “Its movement is only subject to natural forces, such as gravitation and atmospheric drag, the latter causing the progressive loss of mechanical energy that ultimately leads to a totally uncontrolled re-entry. That is, without possible human intervention”.
When space debris enters the Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds, it experiences extreme acceleration and extreme temperatures. Debris can break into smaller pieces, some of which will burn from the heat and some of which will fall to the ground.
Without However, due to the large size of this piece of debris, only a small amount will burn.
It is likely that between 21 and 40 percent of the propellant survives the fall and impact with the earth’s surface, depending on the composition of the components and especially on the proportion of the two key light metals (aluminum and titanium ) present.
Current estimates from Aerospace Corp. show that the booster pieces are likely to fall into the Indian Ocean, just off the Horn of Africa.
Also read:
· Video: Russia launches with successful space freighter Progress MS-21 en route to the ISS
· Remains of a Chinese rocket that had been wandering for years in space finally crashed into the moon
· Point Nemo: What is and where is the spaceship graveyard?