More reports have surfaced on the appearance of the Chinese rocket's debris in various areas across the Indian Ocean.
A number of debris from China's Long March 5B rocket has been found on the ground in various locations across Southeast Asia, specifically in Indonesia and Malaysia. The core stage of a Long March 5B rocket, which weighs up to 22.5 metric tons reentered into the Earth's atmosphere with no control from Chinese space agency scientists.
Most of the booster burned up as it reentered Earth's atmosphere, but about 20% to 40% of it by weight had made it back to the ground, experts estimated, as per Space.com. Remnants of the Long March 5B rocket crash have now been found by residents across Southeast Asia.
Some of the pieces of China's Long March 5B rocket were reportedly large enough to cause serious damage or injury if they have fallen into villages in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Experts Report on the Debris from the Long March 5B Rocket Crash
On Monday, astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics took to Twitter to explain that "significant debris" from China's Long March 5B rocket crash were found in Kalimantan, Indonesia and Sarawak, Malaysia. While there were no injuries or damage to property reported, experts worried that the debris had in fact landed "a few hundred meters" away from villages.
On July 24, China launched the Long March 5B to deliver a new lab module towards its Tiangong space station, which continues to be under construction. The Long March 5B rocket's core stage reached orbit with the module. Later, it traveled back down to Earth sheerly by atmospheric drag.
Oftentimes, disposal of big rockets are done by steering them towards the direction of the ocean or unpopulated areas shortly after lift off. Chinese space agency officials, however, decided against performing the steering strategy and chose to just let the debris of the Long March 5B rocket crash back into earth, causing criticism from Western space agencies.
Space Scientists Heavily Criticize China's Irresponsibility Over the Long March 5B Rocket Crash
This is not the first time China failed to control their space debris. In fact, China has let Long March 5B cores become space junk twice before, during the rocket's missions to date.
Back in May 2020, the first Long March 5B mission resulted in debris raining over the West African nation of Ivory Coast. In April 2021, China once again let their space junk crash over the Indian Ocean.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson took to Twitter on Saturday to criticize China for failing to "share specific trajectory information" of the Long March 5B rocket crash as it fell back to Earth. He argued that all spacefaring nations must "follow established best practices" and be responsible enough to report such information to "allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk" especially for heavy vehicles such as the Long March 5B, to avoid casualties and damage to property.
China does not plan on stopping from launching the Long March 5B, as Yahoo! Finance reported that it will be deployed two more times. The rocket is set to deliver the third and final part of Tiangong in October and fly again next year to deliver the Xuntian space telescope.
