DEBRIS FROM CHINA'S "LONG MARCH" ROCKET DISINTEGRATES OVER INDIAN OCEAN

  • 09/05/2021

The debris from China's disintegrating Long March rocket entered the Earth's atmosphere on Sunday and reportedly fell into the Indian Ocean area close to the Maldives, the country's space agency said, ending an anxious week as people and the governments wondered where and when the space junk would fall.The remnants of China's Long March 5B rocket re-entered the Earth's atmosphere at 10.24am Beijing time and fell into an open sea area at 72.47 degrees east longitude and 2.65 degrees north latitude, China's Manned Space Engineering Office said.


The coordinates put the splash down in the Indian Ocean, close to the Maldives, Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post reported, adding that most the remnants burned up during the re-entry.The rocket, carrying the core module for China's Tiangong Space Station, blasted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the southern island province of Hainan on 29 April.The large rocket stage that de-orbited was more than 33 metres (108 feet) tall and weighed more than 20 tonnes, making it the sixth largest object to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, according to the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research organisation based in California.

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