A Chinese rocket will fall to Earth Friday, and it could be headed for Florida

TAMPA, Fl (WFLA) — A massive, 23-ton hunk of Chinese space junk orbiting Earth is expected to make a chaotic return to the home planet Friday, but it’s unknown exactly when or where it will come down.

According to a report from space.com, the space junk in question comes from the core stage of a Long March 5B rocket, which reached orbit around Earth on Monday, Oct. 31 to deliver the final module for China’s Tiangong space station.

While the core stage has been orbiting Earth for the past few days, atmospheric drag has been pulling the rocket body back little by little.

The media outlet said models and observations suggest the rocket body will make its final return Friday morning, but the error bars, which measure how accurate — or inaccurate in this case — a reported value might be, remain large at the moment.

The Aerospace Corporation, which supports national security space programs, said in its latest prediction that the rocket body could make an atmospheric reentry Friday around 7:20 a.m. EDT, plus or minus three hours.

With a cone of uncertainty that large, much of North America, nearly all of Central America, and most of Africa are in the potential line of fire for space debris impact.

However, “It is still too early to determine a meaningful debris footprint,” the corporation added.

While there is no need for panic considering much of the rocket body will likely burn up upon reentry, it is possible some sturdier pieces could survive the fall back all the way back to the ground, posing a risk to people and infrastructure in its way.

In fact, it’s not the first time a piece of man-made falling debris has posed a threat to the planet. It’s not even the first time a Chinese rocket part has come crashing down. All three of Long March 5B’s core stages have fallen back to Earth in an uncontrolled manner, most recently in July, after the rocket transported the Wentian module to Tiangong.

While other private space companies or agencies designed their orbital rockets to return into the ocean or over unpopulated land, or, in the case of SpaceX, autonomously land for future reuse, the Long March 5B core stage reaches orbit and has no way to steer itself down so it uses atmospheric drag do the work, chaotically.

Originally Published:
https://www.wfla.com/glance-at-the-galaxy/a-chinese-rocket-will-fall-to-earth-friday-and-it-could-be-headed-for-florida/