Debris from China’s Long March-5B Y2 carrier rocket reentered Earth’s atmosphere at 10:24 am Beijing time on Sunday with most parts burnt off during the process, China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said.
The location of re-entry is 72.47 degrees east longitude and 2.65 degrees north latitude, CMSA noted in a statement on Sunday.
Despite clarification by China’s space industry insiders and Foreign Ministry that the probability of the rocket remnants causing harm was extremely low, a number of Western media outlets, including CNN and the New York Times, as well as the Pentagon, incessantly hyped that the debris was heading back to Earth in an “uncontrolled” manner.
Responding to such voices, Chinese experts noted that it is a “purely false allegation”, as China’s space authorities have been accurately capturing data of the remnants’ flight course, and made accordingly accurate predictions, adding that the West’s finding faults with China over the global “common practice” reflects its selfish double standards.
The so-called “uncontrolled re-entry” of China’s rocket debris is a groundless, false accusation, Song Zhongping, an aerospace expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday.
“It only refers to the loss of propulsion, but in no way means that China has lost track of its flying trajectory and real-time location,” Song noted, saying that every movement of the rocket pieces is being closely watched by China’s space tracking network, and accurate predictions on its landing site have been made accordingly and the flight course would avoid densely-inhabited areas.
Industry insiders noted to the Global Times that China did its homework beforehand during the initial rocket design phase on the liftoff position, trajectory planning and related technical preparations.
It is “completely normal” for rocket debris to return to Earth, and has been a common practice carried out by global participants in the aerospace field, including China and the US. Western media’s picking on China over the matter is “nothing but Western hype over China’s space technology advancement,” observers noted.
In stark contrast to media reports on China’s rocket debris being “out of control” and “irresponsible”, burning rocket remnants of the second stage of the US SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which crashed on a farm in eastern Washington state in March, were described as “leaving comet-like trails” as the vessel streaked across the Pacific Northwest sky, AP reported in April.
The different descriptions of the two rockets reflected the double standards adopted by some Western forces in the way China is treated, said Song, as “they are not really worried about causing harm to people, but since it’s a Chinese rocket, they have politicized the matter, put label on it and then hyped it.”
The probability of harm caused by the rocket, which sent China’s space station Tianhe core module into orbit on April 29, is “extremely low,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday amid continuous Western hype of the dangerous “out of control” re-entry.
Space experts added that the environmentally friendly fuel used by China’s Long March-5B Y2 rocket will not result in water pollution if the debris falls into the ocean.
Following the launch of the Long March-5B Y2, China kicked off an intense construction phase of the country’s first space station project, where a busy schedule of another 10 launches has been set for the next two years. The space station is expected to be operational by 2022.
The space station will be the only operational one in orbit that will be open to foreign partners after the retirement of the International Space Station, scheduled in 2024, experts said.
Photo:Xinhua
