China's 21-ton rocket is set to fall back to earth in an uncontrolled re-entry and it could hit on populated areas, experts warn.
The Long March 5B carrying module for China's upcoming self owned space station launched on Wednesday has successfully delivered its mission, but the 30-meter long rocket itself also reached orbit and predicted to crash back to earth within the next few days.
Experts fear it could make uncontrolled reentry and it could possibly land on the inhabited area.
"The Long March 5B core stage is seven times more massive than the Falcon 9 second stage that caused a lot of press attention a few weeks ago when it reentered above Seattle and dumped a couple of pressure tanks on Washington state," spaceflight observer Jonathan McDowell told the website.
According to Satellite trackers the 100-foot-long rocket is travelling at more than four miles per second.
The rocket believed to be orbiting the earth every 90 minutes with 41.5 degrees which means the rocket travels just north of New York, Madrid and Beijing.
The latest Starlink batch has begun orbit raising and S-2527, which seems to have booted up late, has rejoined the pack: pic.twitter.com/VRV3P2jsQA
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) May 3, 2021
“Today's decay plot for the Tianhe objects.
“The core stage apogee continues to come down slowly.
“No new data today on Tianhe itself, which could indicate it made an orbit raising burn and tracking has lost it for now.”
Mr McDowell said of its size: “To summarize: this one is bigger than anything recent, but not as big as Skylab and its ilk back in the day.”
Chinese space agency are working to become a space superpower alongside the US and Russia.
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