News18» News»Buzz»Chinese Rocket's 18-tonne Segment Crashes in the Indian Ocean: All You Need to Know
1-MIN READ

Chinese Rocket's 18-tonne Segment Crashes in the Indian Ocean: All You Need to Know

Long March-5B Y2 rocket. Reuters.

Long March-5B Y2 rocket. Reuters.

The location of the Chinese rocket was recorded near Saudi Arabia when the US systems last tracked the debris.

  • Last Updated:May 10, 2021, 12:11 IST

A large portion of a Chinese rocket penetrated the Earth's atmosphere and dispersed over the Indian Ocean on Sunday, according to the Chinese space agency. The announcement came amid chaos as to where the 18-tonne rocket would fall. Previously, executives in China's capital Beijing stated that there is an insignificant risk from the falling chunks of the Long March-5B rocket, which took the first module of the country's new space station into orbit of Earth last month.

But NASA, the renowned space agency of the US, and some specialists stated that China had acted irresponsibly, as a freefall re-entry of such a massive object gambled casualties and huge damage. Space Track monitoring service which leverages US military data stated that it is not known if the debris hit water or land. The location of the rocket was recorded near Saudi Arabia when the US systems last tracked the debris.

The service tweeted that the wreckage of the rocket eventually fell into the Indian Ocean near the northern side of Maldives.

The Chinese Manned Space Engineering office, on the other hand, stated that following the analysis and monitoring at 10:24 (0224 GMT) on May 9, 2021, the last-stage remains of the Long March 5B Yao-2 launch vehicle has re-entered the earth's atmosphere and will fall in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives.

RELATED STORIES

The office continued that the largest of the section disintegrated and was dispersed during the fall. The United States's military space unit declared that the rocket chunks re-entered over the Arabian Peninsula.

The rocket's fall met the predictions of the experts that any wreckage would have splattered down into the ocean as the majority of the Earth (70 per cent) is covered by water.Since the rocket witnessed an uncontrolled descent, there was an extensive public concern and assumptions about where the wreckage would fall,according to france24.com.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here

Tags
first published:May 10, 2021, 12:11 IST