China’s Mengtian space station module is on the launch pad, being readied for a reported liftoff on Oct. 31 atop a powerful Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the island of Hainan.
The liftoff will be a big one for China; Mengtian is the third and final module for the nation’s Tiangong space station.
Many eyes will therefore be on the launch — and also on its aftermath. When their missions are over, Long March 5B core stages fall back to Earth uncontrolled, so where they land becomes a spin of the roulette wheel.
Related: The biggest spacecraft to fall uncontrolled from space
Guessing game
Once again, the guessing game of just where on the planet the core stage’s fiery reentry will occur is sure to absorb extensive time of space junk trackers — and for good reason.
The Long March 5B core stage is estimated to weigh around 23 tons (21 metric tons). That’s about twice the mass of an average school bus, or the empty mass of a Boeing 737. Experts predict that 20% to 40% of the core stage will survive reentry and hit the surface. But which surface? Ocean or land?
By design, the core stage of the Long March 5B reaches orbit rather than coming back down shortly after liftoff. Consequently, previous launches of the hefty rocket have resulted in uncontrolled reentries as the core stage naturally falls out of orbit a week or so later, risking serious damage on the ground.
International law
In 2020, debris from a Long March 5B landed in Cote d’Ivoire, damaging several buildings. And this year, some pieces hit land in Indonesia and Malaysia, noted Harry Boneham, an aerospace analyst at the London-headquartered analytics company GlobalData.
“Under international law, specifically the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects, which elaborates on Article VII of the Outer Space Treaty, China would be liable to pay compensation for damage caused by its space objects on the surface of the Earth,” Boneham told Inside Outer Space. “However, enforcement would be a difficult process.”
Looking forward, it is unlikely that China will move away from using the Long March 5B.
It is China’s most powerful rocket and currently its sole option for heavy-lift launches. There are only two more launches of the Long March 5B officially planned, including the Mengtian mission. China is also planning…
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