Chinese rocket tracker - live: Falling spacecraft falls to Earth over Indian Ocean, reports say

If rocket debris landed over an inhabited area, it would be akin to a ‘small plane crash ... over 100 miles’.

Long March-5B rocket takes off from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center

The Long March 5B rocket, which carried a Chinese space station module, has dropped into low Earth orbit and now risks crashing back down.

The rocket successfully launched the Tianhe module last week, which will become the living quarters of the future Chinese Space Station (CSS). Unfortunately, the 30-metre long rocket also reached orbit, and is now one of the largest ever launches to make an uncontrolled re-entry.

It is uncommon for rockets to reach the velocity necessary to reach orbit, but it is currently travelling around the world once every 90 minutes, or seven kilometres every second. It passes by just north of New York, Madrid, and Beijing, and as far south as Chile and New Zealand.

There are fears that the rocket could land on an inhabited area; the last time a Long March rocket was launched in May 2020, debris was reported falling on villages in the Ivory Coast. The speed of the rocket means scientists still do not yet know when it will fall, but it is likely to do so before 10 May 2021.

Read more:

• Huge Chinese rocket falling back to Earth in uncontrolled reentry
• Chinese rocket falls back to Earth: what do we know so far?
• China’s falling rocket: what happens if out-of-control Long March 5B hits the Earth?

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Key points

• The 21-ton Long March 5B rocket carried a module of China’s new space station into low Earth orbit last week
• The speed of the rocket means it is orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes
• The Long March 5B core stage is seven times bigger than the second stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9

[9 May 2021 03:26 · Andrew Griffin]

Twitter users claim to have seen rocket as it flies over Middle East

No quick way to verify these, of course, but there are a lot of people claiming they saw the rocket as it made its way over the Middle East. A selection here:

If that’s right, and it’s not already dropped down, it will now be making its way across the Indian Ocean and to Australia. (For obvious reasons, there’s less chance of spotting it as it goes over water, so the possibility that it has re-entered without being seen is greater. There’s no way to know whether that has happened; it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing.)

[9 May 2021 03:05 · Andrew Griffin]

Lack of sun could make rocket hard to see – but heat might make it visible

When it catches the Sun, the rocket is fairly bright in the sky, and can be seen in pictures and videos.

When the Earth is in the way, however, it may be much brighter, for obvious reasons.

However, the rocket is now potentially so close to Earth that it could be heating up as it flies through the atmosphere – if that was the case, it might light up, too, in such a way that we can see it from the ground, even in dark places.

[9 May 2021 03:01 · Andrew Griffin]

Path arrives over Europe – and prompts hope of sightings

The most dependable way to know whether the rocket is still up and flying will be if someone sees it doing so. And it is just arriving back over land, following a trip over the Atlantic.

It will be flying over Portugal and then making its way across the Mediterranean, during which it may well be visible – if it’s still up there.

[9 May 2021 02:52 · Andrew Griffin]

Rocket’s projected track continues to take it spinning around the world – but it may have crashed

The projected path of the rocket is currently taking it over the Azores. But as before there’s no way to know whether it’s still sticking to that path – it may well have fallen into the ocean. We’re well into the re-entry window now: the middle of it is only about 20 minutes away.

[9 May 2021 02:37 · Andrew Griffin]

Latest as rocket due to fall any moment

If you’re just joining us, here is a round-up of the situation over the last few hours, from Reuters:

Remnants of China‘s largest rocket launched last week are expected to plunge back through the atmosphere in the coming hours, European and U.S. tracking centres said on Saturday.

While there were still varying estimates of where the rocket would land, it appeared increasingly likely it would not hit the United States.

China‘s foreign ministry said on Friday that most debris will burn on re-entry and is highly unlikely to cause any harm, after the U.S. military said that what it called an uncontrolled re-entry was being tracked by U.S. Space Command.

U.S. Space Command estimated re-entry would occur at 0211 GMT on Sunday, plus or minus one hour, while the Center for Orbital Reentry and Debris Studies (CORDS) at Aerospace Corporation, a U.S. federally funded space-focused research and development centre, updated its prediction to two hours either side of 0302 GMT with the rocket re-entering over the Pacific.

EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) said its latest prediction for the timing of the re-entry of the Long March 5B rocket body was 139 minutes either side of 0232 GMT on Sunday.

EU SST said the statistical probability of a ground impact in a populated area is “low”, but noted that the uncontrolled nature of the object made any predictions uncertain.

Space-Track, reporting data collected by U.S. Space Command, estimated the debris would make reentry over the Mediterranean Basin.

Harvard-based astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said on Twitter that it was believed the United States was safe from a potential impact but recent predictions were still tracking it from Costa Rica all the way to Australia and New Zealand.

Travelling at a speed of around 4.8 miles per second, a difference of just one minute in the time of reentry translates to hundreds of miles difference on the ground.

“This is difficult to predict and not an exact measurement,” Space-Track wrote on Twitter.

[9 May 2021 02:26 · Andrew Griffin]

Rocket over South Pacific – if it is not in the South Pacific

The rockets predicted path should be taking it over the South Pacific now. That’s if it’s not already crashed into it; as below, we have no way to know for sure.

It will next be flying over land in about 20 minutes, or at 1.44 UTC, when it will pass over Costa Rica. That could be the next time anyone has the opportunity to try and spot it, and see whether it is still going.

[9 May 2021 02:21 · Andrew Griffin]

Rocket could have crashed already

As astronomer Jonathan McDowell notes here, the rocket might have already re-entered and been destroyed; everyrthing might be already over. (We’re in the window now; it could happen any moment.)

(As below, we don’t know exactly where or when that might happen, and we might not even know that it has happened either.)

[9 May 2021 02:19 · Andrew Griffin]

Rocket might never actually be found

A lot has been made of the location of the rocket’s re-entry, and where it might fall, for obvious reasons.

But it is worth remember that it might never actually be known; indeed, there might be nothing to actually fall to Earth, if the rocket burns up during re-entry. (Because the Long March 5B rocket remains mostly mysterious, it’s not possible to know for certain either way.)

Even if some pieces do drop down to Earth, they might never be found, or it might take some time; most of the Earth is water, and much of the rest is uninhabited, so the chance that it falls into someone’s back garden so they can promptly report it is very low.

[9 May 2021 02:12 · Andrew Griffin]

The window is open and the rocket could fall any moment

The Space Force’s window runs from 1.11am UTC to 3.11am UTC, and so just opened.

It’s likely it will fall towards the middle, but it is very hard to predict, hence the wide window.

[9 May 2021 02:11 · Andrew Griffin]

Video shows rocket tumbling over Lisbon

This video, sent in by João Tomé on Twitter, shows what he says is the rocket as it tumbled over Lisbon earlier this evening.

It will continue making its way around the world as it also approaches it, ahead of the re-entry. (It’s on its way to New Zealand soon.)