China's 'out-of-control' rocket Long March 5B crashes into Indian Ocean near Maldives

In a massive setback to China's space mission, remnants of China's biggest rocket 'Long march 5B' landed in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, with the bulk of its components destroyed upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, according to Chinese state media. As per China Manned Space Engineering Office, the point of impact in the ocean has been zeroed at the west of the Maldives archipelago. China has maintained that its out-of-control rocket posed 'very little risk for objects on the ground'.

China's Long March 5B crashes into Indian Ocean

Chinese state media reported parts of the rocket re-entered the atmosphere at 10:24 a.m. Beijing time (0224 GMT) and landed at a location with the coordinates of longitude 72.47 degrees east and latitude 2.65 degrees north. While several countries were expecting massive debris as Long March 5B blasted off from China's Hainan island on April 29, the  China Manned Space Engineering Office said most of the debris was burnt up in the atmosphere. Last year, pieces from the first Long March 5B fell on Ivory Coast, damaging several buildings but no injuries were reported.

Harvard-based astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Reuters that the potential debris zone could have been as far north as New York, Madrid or Beijing, and as far south as southern Chile and Wellington, New Zealand. Ever since large chunks of the NASA space station Skylab fell from orbit in July 1979 and landed in Australia, most countries have sought to avoid such uncontrolled re-entries through their spacecraft design, McDowell said. However, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin dismissed concerns saying, "It is common practice across the world for upper stages of rockets to burn up while reentering the atmosphere". Inspite of its warnings, US had ruled out shooting down the rocket.

What is Long March 5B?

Long March 5B put an unmanned Tianhe module as part of T-shaped Chinese Space Station which is scheduled completed by late 2022. This rocket is set to be followed by 10 more missions to complete the 66 ton Chinese Space station, which will be far lighter than the ISS which weighs around 419 tons.  In May, last year, a part of China's Long March 5B (CZ–5B) rocket crash-landed in the Atlantic Ocean, as per Science Alert. The debris was reportedly the rocket's core and was 30.48 meters, weighing almost 18,000 kgs - making it the biggest rocket debris to fall in the Ocean since 1991. Reports stated that the rocket was launched on 5 May 2020 and had spent several days in orbit before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and crashing off the west coast of northwest Africa.

Before this recent mission, China has sent two other space stations in space called the Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2. The Tiangong-1 crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2016 after Beijing confirmed it had lost control. In 2019, the space agency controlled the demolition of its second station, Tiangong-2, in the atmosphere. However, China was the third country to independently send an astronaut to space after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

(With agency inputs)