Debris from the Chinese rocket that helped placing the country’s new Wentian space station into orbit falls into the sea in the Philippines.
Most of the Long March-5B rocket was destroyed by the fire immediately emerging after entering the Earth’s atmosphere, a statement from the China Manned Space Agency reported. Nevertheless, the debris that ended up falling unguided on Earth, landed at 119 degrees east longitude and 9.1 degrees north latitude south-east of the Puerto Princesa city in the Philippines, near the island of Palawan.
Philippine authorities have not commented on the incident so far and it is not known if any people were injured or the debris caused any material damages.
Long March-5B rocket was launched on July 24.
China was criticised twice before in the past for letting different rocket parts to fall to Earth unguided. According to NASA, the country failed “to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after last year debris of a Chinese rocket ended up in the Indian Ocean, an entire rocket fell back on Earth in 2020 and the first Chinese space station Tiangong-1 landed uncontrollably into the Pacific Ocean back in 2016.
Source: aljazeera.com
Kw: Long March-5B, rocket, debris, Earth, China, Wentian space station, space news
