The United States (US) shows evidence of the Chinese Long March 2D rocket falling back to Earth and burning up in the sky over Texas. Photos/Spaces
According to USNI News, the four-tonne rocket section entered the atmosphere over the southwest corner of Texas at about 27,400 km/h around 9:30 p.m. local time. The US Space Command later issued a statement to the USNI confirming the re-entry of China’s Long March 2D rocket.
Footage of the fireball shooting across the sky likely shows parts of a Chinese rocket burning up in the atmosphere over Texas earlier this month. The images and video appear to show a piece of burning debris in Earth’s atmosphere.
The video and images were taken by Kylie McMillan, a student from Waco, Texas, while camping in Boquillas Canyon in south Texas, near the US-Mexico border. McMillan included metadata from the image above, indicating it was taken at 9:33 pm CST on March 7, 2023.
“I was taking a spring break trip with a group of other students when I saw this in the sky. It was moving pretty fast, and I believe we only saw it for about 30-45 seconds before it broke up in the atmosphere,” McMillan told Space.com quoted by SINDOnews, Wednesday (22/3/2023).
After reviewing the available information, astronomer and space launch tracker Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told Space.com that the video is likely part of the rocket reentering Earth.
Although no damage was caused by the event it became a wide concern for all parties. “The re-entry of this Chinese rocket stage over Texas reinforces the need for better international norms regarding the fall of rocket parts due to high risk and uncontrollability,” US Space Command told USNI News.
Moreover, the incident of a Chinese rocket falling back to Earth uncontrollably has been repeated several times, thus drawing criticism from the leaders of other space agencies. Another event that received wide attention was when the first stage of the Long March 5B rocket crashed uncontrollably.
This rocket is used by China to build the Tiangong space station in low Earth orbit. The Long March 5B core was not designed for safe disposal overboard after shipping or reuse.
(wib)
