Long March 5B Rocket of China to fall back on Earth: USA - Burning Issues

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US Space Command tracks Chinese rocket for uncontrolled re-entry from orbit

China’s 100-foot (30-m) Long March 5B rocket successfully launched the Tianhe space station module last Thursday, April 29, 2021. That module will become the living quarters of the future Chinese Space Station. It’s currently in its correct orbit after separating from the core stage of the rocket as planned. The core stage, however, also reached orbit and is now descending again, on a path to be one of the largest-ever pieces of space debris to make an uncontrolled re-entry back into Earth’s atmosphere.
The Long March 5B rocket blasted off from China’s Hainan island on April 29 carrying the Tianhe module, which contains what will become living quarters for three crew on a permanent Chinese space station. The Tianhe launch was the first of 11 missions needed to complete the station

Remnants of a large Chinese rocket launched last week are expected to plunge back through the atmosphere this weekend in an uncontrolled re-entry being tracked by U.S. Space Command.
The rocket’s exact point of descent into Earth’s atmosphere as it falls back from space “cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry,” which is projected to occur around May 8, Space Command said.
Even for experts, plotting the precise trajectory of a large piece of falling space debris is difficult, if not impossible. There are many uncertainties involved in calculating the effect of atmospheric drag on China’s core module, for example. The high speed of the rocket body means it orbits Earth roughly every 90 minutes, and so a change of just a few minutes in reentry time results in a reentry point hundreds of miles away. Plus, the sun is now in a relatively active phase of its 11-year cycle, and Earth’s atmosphere can expand or contract with solar activity. All of these factors make it hard to estimate exactly when and where the rocket will come down.
potentially dangerous debris will likely escape incineration after streaking through the atmosphere at hypersonic speed but in all likelihood would fall into the sea, given that 70 percent of the world is covered by ocean.
There is a chance that pieces of the rocket could come down over land, perhaps in a populated area, as in May 2020, when pieces from another Chinese Long March 5B rocket rained down on the Ivory Coast, damaging several buildings, though no injuries were reported

The 18th Space Control Squadron at Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 257 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles, is tracking the spent rocket, plotting updates on its location as it descends, the U.S. Space Command said.
The squadron tracks more than 27,000 man-made objects in space, most of them in low orbit

The Global Times, a Chinese tabloid published by the official People’s Daily, characterized reports that the rocket is “out of control” and could cause damage as “Western hype.” The situation is “not worth panicking about,” it said, citing industry insiders.
“Most of the debris will burn up during re-entry… leaving only a very small portion that may fall to the ground, which will potentially land on areas away from human activities or in the ocean,
most countries have sought to design spacecraft in such a way as to avoid large, uncontrolled re-entries, since large chunks of the NASA space station Skylab fell from orbit in July 1979 and landed in Australia.
“It makes the Chinese rocket designers look lazy that they didn’t address this,” he said, calling the situation “negligent.”

China, world’s most populous country, hopes to have the new station operational by 2022. The only space station currently in orbit is the International Space Station (ISS); China is not an ISS partner, and no Chinese nationals have been aboard. The Chinese government sat out the famous 1960s space race between the Soviet Union and the U.S., which ultimately launched the first humans to the moon in 1969. But, in recent years, China has been making up for lost time. It’s launched several robotic missions to the moon and Mars, as well as successfully landed on the moon’s far side, and made history with its lunar sample return mission.
Meanwhile, Tianwen-1 is a Chinese probe that entered Mars orbit on February 10, 2021. It’s set to land a rover on Mars’ surface this month or in June.

The mission was successfully launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on 23 July 2020 on a Long March 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle. After 7 months of transit, it entered orbit around Mars on 10 February 2021.
If the rover landing and deployment are successful, China would become only the second country to accomplish this feat, after the United States. It would also become the third country to achieve a successful soft landing on Mars, after the Soviet Union and the United States.