No such precautions appear to have been made for China's Long March 5B, which is why there is heightened anxiety around the globe each time the rocket is launched. Most space-faring nations and aerospace companies take precautions when launching objects of this size to space, ensuring that their vehicles are disposed of over unpopulated areas - typically the ocean. estimates that between 10% and 40% of the rocket could make it to the planet's surface. With an object of that size and mass, it's likely that large pieces of debris from the rocket could survive and hit somewhere on Earth. When smaller satellites and spacecraft fall out of orbit, they mostly burn up in the atmosphere, posing little risk to the ground below.īut the core of the Long March 5B is about 108 feet (33 meters) long and weighs 48,500 pounds (22 metric tons). The spokesman said Chinese officials are monitoring the trail of the booster and have been 'releasing information to the international society with an open and transparent attitude.' 'This type of rocket makes use of a special design technology, allowing most components to burn through during the process of entering the atmosphere, and the probability of it harming the earth and aviation activities is extremely low.' 'China has always been conducting activities that utilize the space peacefully according to international laws and customs,' said a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson. While China isn't in breach of any laws or international treaties, its National Space Administration is part of the member of a 13-member Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, or IADC, which recently recommended that space junk entering the atmosphere should not exceed a one-in-10,000 chance of injuring or killing a person. Eventually its orbit decays and it descends to Earth. Unlike other rockets, the Long March 5B's core stage travels all the way into orbit during launch and circles the Earth for a few days. The rocket lofted an experimental laboratory module called Mengtian, meant to dock with China's space station, Tiangong. The falling booster is the large core stage of the Long March 5B rocket launched on Oct.

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