Debris from a Chinese rocket re-enters the atmosphere over the Pacific

Nov. 4 () –

Remains of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket launched on October 31 They re-entered the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner at 10:01 UTC on November 4 over the Pacific Ocean.

The United States Space Command reported on his Twitter account that “the Long March 5B CZ5B rocket of the People’s Republic of China returned to entering the atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean at 10:01 UTC,” one more hour in Madrid time.

#USSPACECOM can confirm a second atmospheric reentry correlated with the #PRC‘s Long March 5B #CZ5B as it exited the #USSPACECOM Area of ​​Responsibility over the Northeast Pacific Ocean region at 4:06am MDT/10:06 UTC on Nov. 4. https://t.co/keJdc1tmxi

— US Space Command (@US_SpaceCom) November 4, 2022

Subsequently, the same US Space Command confirmed a second correlated atmospheric reentry of the CZ5B upper stage of the Long March 5B rocket. over the northeastern Pacific Ocean region at 10:06 UTC.

In two of its final orbits, the object’s trajectory passed over Spain, causing disturbances in air traffic to avoid risks.

Space surveillance centers around the world were monitoring the re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere of the large space object CZ-5B, the core stage of the rocket Mengtian launched, the third module of the Chinese space station on October 31, 2022.

The CZ-5B object has a mass ranging between 17 and 23 tons and a size of about 30 meters, making it one of the largest pieces of debris to have re-entered in the near past and thus deserves careful monitoring, as reported by the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking.