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'Really unpredictable': Chinese rocket hurtling back to Earth; possible debris zone spans huge swath of globe - msnNOW
May 08, 2021 59 secs
A huge section of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket is falling back to Earth and debris may land sometime Saturday evening or later — if the rocket doesn't burn up on the way down.

"The core piece of this rocket is so massive and burns so long," ending up in a higher orbit, said Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station in 2004-2005.

The Long March 5B rocket carrying China's Tianhe space station core module lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China's Hainan province April 29, 2021.

China plans 10 more launches to carry additional parts of the space station into orbit.

"You have this 22-ton piece of rocket debris and it's going to orbit the earth ...

China’s space agency has yet to say whether the main stage of the huge Long March 5B rocket is being controlled or will make an out-of-control descent.

The debris will be dragged toward Earth by increasing collisions with molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere, Space News said. .

The 18-ton rocket that fell last May was the heaviest debris to fall uncontrolled since the Soviet space station Salyut 7 in 1991

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