Washington has decided not to attack the Beijing rocket. The head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, assured Thursday, May 6 that he did not plan to destroy the Chinese rocket which is due to make an uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere this weekend. However, he half-heartedly criticized Beijing for having lost control of its machine.
“According to the latest estimates that I have seen, it is scheduled for May 8 or 9,” the US defense minister said at a press conference.
“At this point, we have no plans to destroy the rocket,” he added. “We hope she falls somewhere where she doesn’t harm anyone, in the ocean or somewhere like that, we hope.”
China last week launched the first of three elements of its space station, the “CSS”, which was powered by a Long March 5B rocket. It is the body of this rocket that is due to land in the next few days, and no one knows where.
After the separation of the space module, the launcher began to orbit the planet in an irregular trajectory, slowly losing altitude, making any prediction about its point of entry into the atmosphere, and therefore its point of fall, almost impossible.
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This is not a first for Beijing
It is possible that it will decay on entry into the atmosphere, leaving only limited debris to crash. And if it remains whole, the planet being 70% water, there is a good chance that the rocket will be damaged in the sea, but without certainty. It could thus crash into an inhabited area or onto a ship.
Without naming the Chinese authorities by name, Austin hinted that the Chinese rocket launch had not been planned carefully enough.
“This is a testament to the fact that, for those of us who operate in space, there is – or there should be – an obligation to operate in a safe and thoughtful manner and to take all of this into account when planning operations, “he added.
This is not the first time that China has lost control of a spacecraft upon its return to earth. In April 2018, a Tiangong-1 space laboratory disintegrated on re-entry into the atmosphere, two years after it ceased to function. The Chinese authorities had denied that the laboratory had escaped their control.
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