Spanish airports SHUT over fears out-of-control Chinese rocket may smash plane
The module, which weighs 20 tons and was detached from the 'Long March-5B Y4', is part of China's ambitious space plan to create its own International Space Station., according to aerospace experts who are scrambling to determine its path back home.Gregory Henning, Project Leader at The Aerospace Corporation’s Centre for Orbital Debris and Reentry Studies suggested that there is still too much uncertainty in the data and models to make a prediction.
“As the rocket body’s altitude decreases and the re-entry approaches, the window will shrink, and will begin to reveal locations that will not be the landing site,” Henning told theThe latest rocket malfunction mirrors a crash in July after space debris from a previous Chinese launchAt the time experts failed to disclose its exact location following fears that it could have hit a populated town or village.
But while major cities again appear to be safe from the falling debris on this occasion, Henning suggested that “88 per cent of the world’s population does live within those at-risk latitude bounds” of the booster’s expected landing area.This is the third time in two years that the Chinese space authorities have generated this global danger, which NASA has described on other occasions as irresponsible.
The rocket was scheduled to enter the Earth's atmosphere in the early hours of Saturday, but the impact has been advanced to this Friday before 12:30 noon.
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