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China keeps a tight eye on rocket debris. Within days, Earth might be struck.

On Wednesday (July 27), China declared that it is actively monitoring the newest large piece of Chinese space debris that will re-enter the atmosphere. Since it is unclear exactly where it will land, experts are worried. Nevertheless, they expect the re-entry to take place at the end of the month, most likely on July 31 at 02:22 UTC 17 hours.

Only a few tiny pieces of the Tianzhou-3 ship managed to fall harmlessly into the South Pacific on Wednesday, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dismissed these worries on Wednesday. During a daily briefing, he said: ‘Since the development stage of the space engineering program, China has taken into consideration the debris mitigation and return from orbit into atmosphere of missions involving rocket carriers and satellite sent into orbit.’

It is recognised that because of the unique technical design used in this sort of rocket, the majority of its components will be burned up and destroyed upon re-entry. The likelihood of harming aviation operations or those on the ground is really slim, according to Zhao.

The fore mentioned rocket waste weighs about 21 tonnes. It was a component of the Sunday launch of the Wentian space station module. The unmanned Wentian spacecraft was launched from the Wenchang launch facility on China’s tropical island of Hainan by a Long March 5B (CZ-5B) rocket.

The Center for Orbital Reentry and Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation is monitoring the rocket body’s re-entry trajectory following the CZ-5B launch (CORDS).

And as per the researchers at The Aerospace Corporation, ‘there is a non-zero probability of the surviving debris landing in a populated area—over 88 percent of the world’s population lives under the reentry’s potential debris footprint.’

 

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