Out-of-control’ Chinese rocket falling to Earth

drunkmonkey · 04-05-2021 9:04am #1

‘Out-of-control’ Chinese rocket falling to Earth could partially survive re-entry
Long March 5B is doing 27,600km/h in failing orbit, with eventual crash site unknown, after launching space station hub
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/04/out-of-control-chinese-rocket-tumbling-to-earth

You can track it here, https://orbit.ing-now.com/satellite/48275/2021-035b/cz-5b/

It’s expected to return to Earth on 10 May, plus or minus two days.

Odelay · 04-05-2021 9:07am

“It’s potentially not good,” said Jonathan McDowell, Astrophysicist at the Astrophysics Center at Harvard University. Says it all..

Brief_Lives · 04-05-2021 9:22am

Scientifically, this is incredibly fascinating, but unfortunately potentially devastating.

still the earth is 71% water, good reason to see it crash into the water.

04-05-2021 9:27am

Following this thread!

fryup · 04-05-2021 10:47am

whats the chances of it falling on your head?

*but seriously whats the chances of it hitting people and killing them?

AMKC · 04-05-2021 6:53pm

Can the Chinese or Americans not just keep a rocket locked onto it incase they need to shoot it down or a few interceptor jets shoot it down either?

Pawwed Rig · 04-05-2021 7:00pm

“Last time they launched a Long March 5B rocket they ended up with big long rods of metal flying through the sky and damaging several buildings in the Ivory Coast,” he said.

“Most of it burned up, but there were these enormous pieces of metal that hit the ground. We are very lucky no one was hurt.”

That was kept quiet

Based on its current orbit the rocket is passing over Earth as far north as New York, Madrid and Beijing and as far south as southern Chile and Wellington, New Zealand, and could make its re-entry at any point within this area.

We are further north so should be ok.

FishOnABike · 04-05-2021 7:02pm

AMKC wrote: »

Can the Chinese or Americans not just keep a rocket locked onto it incase they need to shoot it down or a few interceptor jets shoot it down either?

At 27,600kmh it would be a little difficult to intercept.

shtpEdthePlum · 04-05-2021 7:03pm

Might want to wear a hat if you're going outside between Saturday and Wednesday.

PokeHerKing · 04-05-2021 7:07pm

Not the first time this kind of thing has happened. If it hits land it will only count if it hits a proper city. Most likely fish food or some poor village in the back end of Africa.

By the sounds of things this will be a regular feature of Chinese space ventures given the way those great bunch of lads are designing their rockets.

JustAThought · 04-05-2021 7:09pm

shtpEdthePlum wrote: »

Might want to wear a hat if you're going outside between Saturday and Wednesday.

Wasn’t the LONG MARCH a genocide march that killed tens of thousands - seriously bad precedent for a name :0

Must brush up on my exact history.

If the link would only speed up & open I’d be interested in following it - looks like the spaceship will have landed and wiped out a small African city & been in the news before that happens!

shtpEdthePlum · 04-05-2021 7:09pm

PokeHerKing wrote: »

Not the first time this kind of thing has happened. If it hits land it will only count if it hits a proper city. Most likely fish food or some poor village in the back end of Africa.

By the sounds of things this will be a regular feature of Chinese space ventures given the way those great bunch of lads are designing their rockets.

It may be the second time this particular disaster will have happened, but it's not like China have been involved in any other recent global events that would cause any upset.

drunkmonkey · 04-05-2021 7:34pm

FishOnABike wrote: »

At 27,600kmh it would be a little difficult to intercept.

You don't need to catch it just meet it head on.

FishOnABike · 04-05-2021 7:46pm

shtpEdthePlum wrote: »

Might want to wear a hat if you're going outside between Saturday and Wednesday.

I've got a full roll of tinfoil just in case.

04-05-2021 8:11pm

drunkmonkey wrote: »

You don't need to catch it just meet it head on.

Like a game of space invaders?

shtpEdthePlum · 04-05-2021 8:47pm

FishOnABike wrote: »

I've got a full roll of tinfoil just in case.

If you use it all up, you can use the empty roll to bate it back to China!

Capt'n Midnight · 04-05-2021 9:03pm

JustAThought wrote: »

Wasn’t the LONG MARCH a genocide march that killed tens of thousands - seriously bad precedent for a name :0

Must brush up on my exact history.

If the link would only speed up & open I’d be interested in following it - looks like the spaceship will have landed and wiped out a small African city & been in the news before that happens!

The Long March was when Mao and the lads managed to evade the chase. Imagine if the lads in the GPO in 1916 had continued their escape from Moore Street all the way to Belfast and then won the war.

It's an auspicious name.

First segment of their space station is up, so about 10 more launches to go to assemble it.

Capt'n Midnight · 04-05-2021 9:07pm

Early warning hat

0lddog · 05-05-2021 10:41pm

https://www.ifalpa.org/media/3634/21sab10-long-march-re-entry.pdf

fryup · 06-05-2021 11:21am

can i sue the chinese government if it lands in my vicinity ?

Capt'n Midnight · 06-05-2021 11:32am

fryup wrote: »

can i sue the chinese government if it lands in my vicinity ?

More importantly will the Chinese govt. let you sell the bits on ebay ?

~Rebel~ · 06-05-2021 4:42pm

0lddog wrote: »

https://www.ifalpa.org/media/3634/21sab10-long-march-re-entry.pdf

Such a mad sentence in there; "While the launch was successful, the booster stage of the launching Long March 5B rocket was designed for an “uncontrolled” re-entry, and therefore the exact time and location of its return is unknown."

It's like - We didn't make any mistakes, we just didn't give a shit.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-05-2021 5:48pm

It's the length of three buses and weighs 21 tonnes and only going 27,600km/h

It's not going more than 41.5º, either side of the equator

current position https://orbit.ing-now.com/satellite/48275/2021-035b/cz-5b/

06-05-2021 6:27pm

~Rebel~ wrote: »

Such a mad sentence in there; "While the launch was successful, the booster stage of the launching Long March 5B rocket was designed for an “uncontrolled” re-entry, and therefore the exact time and location of its return is unknown."

It's like - We didn't make any mistakes, we just didn't give a shit.

Karma if it falls on China I guess.

Brief_Lives · 06-05-2021 8:21pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Karma if it falls on China I guess.

China doesn´t give a siht...

K.Flyer · 06-05-2021 9:45pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Karma if it falls on China I guess.

Brief_Lives wrote: »

China doesn´t give a siht...

Even if it landed on Jinping's head and flattened half the Forbidden City they'd probably deny any knowledge of it...

drunkmonkey · 06-05-2021 10:37pm

Quantum Erasure · 07-05-2021 2:29am

Due to cross the US in the next few orbits/ hours after projected reentry, if the projection is off...

https://twitter.com/AerospaceCorp/status/1390416330269020160

Our legend:
Yellow Icon – location of object @ predicted reentry time

Orange Line – area of visibility @ predicted reentry time for ground observer

Blue Line – ground track uncertainty prior to predicted reentry time (ticks @ 5-minute intervals)

Yellow Line – ground track uncertainty after predicted reentry (ticks @ 5-minute intervals)

White Line – day/night divider @ predicted reentry (White Icon = sun location)

Pink Icon – vicinity of eyewitness sighting

Possible reentry locations lie anywhere along blue/yellow tracks

nazmoalex · 07-05-2021 9:15am

Woke up far too early and couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to watch the live feed on YouTube there. Saw 3 complete rotations or cycles, altitude peeked at around 255 km and it's lowest point was 156 km. Seems to drop big time around Africa, any particular reason why?

Capt'n Midnight · 07-05-2021 10:44am

an elliptical orbit means more air drag at the lowq points so it will return sooner, first manned missions did this to guarantee re-entry before life support ran out

circular orbit would keep it up longer more un-predictable as to when and where

note : it's the same mass as the payload, it'a a downside of 1.5 stages to orbit. The big advantage is you can fire up all the engines before lift off so no engine starts on the way

Quantum Erasure · 08-05-2021 3:38am

Predicted reentry has moved forward about 35 mins, and uncertainty narrowed from plus/minus 16 hours to 8 hours... current reentry predicted north of New Zealand. If that moves forward another 23 to 33 mins roughly, it's over North America/ USA, forward 45 mins to 1 hour it's over Africa

https://aerospace.org/reentries/cz-5b-rocket-body-id-48275

Out-of-control’ Chinese rocket falling to Earth

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