U.S. military tracking unguided re-entry of large Chinese rocket
A Chinese rocket measuring around 100 feet long that launched earlier this month will likely plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere some time Monday, becoming the most massive object in decades to fall out of orbit in an uncontrolled manner.
The core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket is expected to fall back to Earth unguided after nearly a week in orbit. The Long March 5B rocket launched May 5 with a prototype for a next-generation Chinese crew capsule.
As of Saturday, the rocket stage was circling Earth in an elliptical orbit ranging between 94 miles (152 kilometers) and 167 miles (270 kilometers) in altitude, according to U.S. military tracking data. A prediction issued Saturday by the U.S. military, which tracks objects in orbit, forecasts the rocket’s re-entry in a 24-hour period between 2335 GMT (7:35 p.m. EDT) Sunday and 2335 GMT (7:35 p.m. EDT) Monday.
But uncontrolled re-entries are difficult to predict, and the forecast could change as ground-based radars continue tracking the Long March 5B rocket body in orbit. Changes in atmospheric drag and solar activity could move the time of re-entry earlier or later.
A one-minute error in predicting the re-entry time changes the location of potential falling debris by nearly 300 miles, or about 500 kilometers, according to the Aerospace Corp.
The Long March 5B rocket body is in an orbit that flies between 41.1 degrees north and south latitude, meaning the re-entry could occur as far north as around New York City, or as far south as Wellington, New Zealand.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/05/09/u-s-military-tracking-large-chinese-rocket-reentry/