Security agencies and surveillance services around the world, including Spainthey are pending again where the remains of a Chinese rocket will fall; Its about Long March 5B, with an estimated mass of about 20 tons and traveling without control at a speed of 28,000 kilometers per hour.
According to the latest monitoring data, the remains of the rocket will enter the Earth’s atmosphere in sometime this weekendwith a reentry window between 20:53 on Saturday (18:53 GMT) and 12:53 on Sunday Spanish time (10:53 GMT); the most accurate estimates can only be made a few hours before re-entry.
The calculations of the experts, based on observations and mathematical models, indicate that the remains of the vehicle, in the event that it does not completely disintegrate in the atmosphere, would fall somewhere between the 41st parallels, most likely in the ocean.
Therefore, the chances that the fall will be on the earth’s surface are very low, confirms to Efe Jorge Lomba, head of the Space department of the Center for Technological and Industrial Development (CDTI), who points out that the rocket will fly over Spanish territory only in three minute-and-a-half orbits in the next two days. The affected countries could be Spain, France, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Grace and Malta.
However, and because it can also affect airspace, as the European Aviation Safety Agency warned yesterday, it must be monitored. That is what has been done since United States or from the European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking Service (EUSST).
The EUSST is permanently coordinated by the CDTI and has various services in place, including monitoring objects that wander without control and that could re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
Although the overall coordination of this body is done from the CDTI, it is Italy the country that coordinates the monitoring of Long March 5B.
There are channels of Youtube that allow to follow the trajectory of the rocket live:
Radar in Spain
For this, it feeds on measurements from telescopes and various radarsincluding the one at the base of Moron de la Frontera (Seville); this radar, although it is in Seville, depends on the Spanish Center for Surveillance and Space Tracking, located at the military base dand Torrejon de Ardoz (Madrid) and managed by the CDTI in coordination with the Ministry of Defense.
In Spain, the reentry is monitored in close coordination between all the competent ministries and, to give an adequate response, the country is also coordinating with its European partners, indicates Lomba.
The Chinese rocket, which took off on July 24 from the island of Hainan and was intended to transport a module to the Chinese orbital space station, is now circling the Earth.
As the rocket loses altitude in its elliptical orbit, it will be possible to reduce the uncertainty and adjust the time and place of the fall of the debris, in the event that it does not disintegrate in its entirety upon colliding with the shield of the Earth’s atmosphere.
the background
It is not the first time that a Chinese ship has been watched by the international community. In May of last year it was also a rocket Long March 5B the one that alerted surveillance services around the world; that term disintegrating almost completely debris falling into the Indian Ocean, causing no damage.
Three years earlier, in April 2018, the laboratory orbitsl Tiangong 1, which had been in disuse since 2016 and was wandering uncontrollably through space, was also monitored; it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean, also without causing damage.
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There are ways, and most of the time this is the case, of making controlled re-entries into the atmosphere of rocket parts that are sent into space and, in their case, into the ocean, but you have to store a lot of fuel for this, which is a great investment, details Lomba.
China does not seem to be doing so, says this expert, who adds that the possibility of developing international regulation is being considered.