On Sunday, the Chinese sent up the second of a total of three modules to their new space station, Tiangong. The rocket, which was of the Long March-5B type, was launched from the island of Hainan in the very south of China. On top of the rocket was the 18 meter laboratory, which arrived at Tiangong after 13 hours. The main part, on the other hand, is on its way back to earth and can land within a week, writes the website Space. 13 minutes away from landing in New York In the case of controlled fallout, the rocket is equipped with motors that allow the engineers to control where it will land. As a rule, the journeys end in the sea – and not an area where people live. According to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, the Chinese rocket is designed to remain in orbit around the earth, before entering the atmosphere at a random time and landing on the earth. Photo: Costfoto / SipaUSA China launched similar rockets in May 2020 and April 2021. Then the remains of the rockets ended up in an uninhabited area on the west coast of Africa and in the Indian Ocean, not far from the island state of the Maldives. It was estimated that the rocket from 2020 was only 13 minutes away from landing in New York, a city with 9 million inhabitants. China is building a heavenly palace: That’s why they are investing in space travel China is investing heavily in building a space program that is in line with the country’s ambitions to establish itself as a superpower. The US has blocked Chinese participation in cooperation on the International Space Station (ISS). That is why China has developed the space station Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace”, on its own. The construction of Tiangong continues. The last thing is that the laboratory module has been connected. Among other things, there is equipment for biological experiments. The third and last module is expected to be launched in October. When Tiangong is finished, it is expected to orbit the earth at an altitude of 400 to 450 kilometers for at least ten years. The mass of Tiangong is approximately 90 tonnes, which corresponds to a quarter of the ISS. A rolling crew of three will work with scientific experiments and test new technology from the station. In 2020, an unmanned Chinese probe brought home the first rock samples from the moon in over 40 years. The Yutu 2 robotic vehicle has been on the far side of the moon for over three years, and the Tianwen-1 probe went into orbit around Mars in February 2021. On 14 May this year, the country achieved a new, great feat, when the Zhurong robotic vehicle landed on the ground on Mars. Source: NTB Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge in the USA follows and tracks the rocket. He tells Gizmodo that unfortunately they cannot say anything about where or when it will land. – Such a large rocket should not be left in orbit to cause an uncontrolled fallout. The risk for people is not enormous, but greater than I am comfortable with. Chinese astronaut Chen Dong watches as the lab module’s hatch opens for the first time. The picture is from Monday. Photo: Guo Zhongzheng / AP Southern cities in the risk zone McDowell underlines on Twitter that the USA does a far better job than China when it comes to transporting missile parts safely down. – The last time the rocket landed 1,000 kilometers south of where I live. Not sure where it will land this time, writes one user on Twitter. – Nobody knows! McDowell replies. Since most rockets are fired near the equator, cities in the global south are particularly vulnerable when the rocket parts fall back down uncontrolled, writes Space. The chance of rockets falling down and damaging people or property is generally very small – mostly because the earth is mostly covered by sea. Researchers still say that there is a 10 percent chance that one or more people will die as a result of such accidents in the next ten years, writes The Independent. Most space agencies have rules for how to handle falling parts of rockets. China has been criticized several times for not meeting today’s standards for spacecraft. China has rejected the debtors as not being responsible enough. After the launch last year, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the risk of damage was “extremely low”, writes NTB. A picture taken on Monday shows the astronauts on board the Chinese space station Tiangong. From left Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong and Liu Yang. Photo: Guo Zhongzheng/AP
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Chinese space rocket on its way to Earth – no one knows where it will land – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
