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The space debris problem is literally coming home.
Last week, China’s space program launched a new rocket that expands its ability to carry out large projects in low Earth orbit. The launch of the Long March 5B demonstrated a new space capsule to bring astronauts into orbit. He also appears to have dropped a large metal object on a city in Ivory Coast.
Local news sources reported that residents heard a loud bang and then discovered the part of the rocket. Fortunately, it did not hurt anyone.
Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, which tracks activity in orbit, noted that the rocket’s path, abandoned after it successfully delivered the capsule to orbit, would have passed through the city in question.
Typically, rocket corps that have completed their work are discarded over the open ocean or maneuvered in long-term elimination orbits where they will not affect people or other spacecraft. China has an erratic history with this, however, it frequently drops rocket stages in populated areas near its own launch sites.
In this case, the rocket design made things even more difficult. Instead of using two stages, the vehicle only has a single core and four disposable reinforcements. That means the body of the rocket that reaches orbit and then reenters is unusually large. Typically, the largest first stage is removed earlier in the mission, leaving only the second smallest stage in orbit. Chinese space engineers are likely to face international pressure to adjust the rocket’s flight profile to ensure future missions do not scatter debris over other countries; In this case, the vehicle passed through New York City less than an hour before it returned to the atmosphere.
McDowell says this is probably the largest uncontrolled entry since a Soviet space station crashed in 1991. When satellites or larger space stations are retired, engineers try to drive them to a remote section of the South Pacific called a spacecraft graveyard. Residents include the former Mir space station, numerous unmanned supply spacecraft, and almost the first Chinese space station, Tiangong-1, which crashed in the Pacific just a few thousand kilometers from the water tank.
