Just after its launch taking China’s first space station module the Long March-5B Y2 rocket, was under huge scrutiny. After completing its mission the rocket was essentially an uncontrolled object in orbit. After long speculation over its trajectory upon earth’s atmosphere, the rocket finally ended up in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives.
The Big Splash
The whole world was worried about the debris from the Chinese mission. The Chinese space agency did not include residual fuel. This fuel is required to control the re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. Luckily, the rocket seems to have spared populated areas on the earth.
According to the Chinese Space agency, the rocket crashed near Maldives islands in the Indian Ocean. The fall in ocean just gave relief to the world, which was worried about the location of the crash. The official news agency, Xinhua confirmed that the debris of the Long March-5B Y2 carrier rocket made its re-entry on Sunday morning. While, most of the debris burned up in the atmosphere small amount crashed into the Indian Ocean. The residue crashed at latitude – 2.65 degrees north and longitude 72.47 degrees east.
The Critical Response from the World
NASA issued a scathing remark on the Chinese Space Agency’s irresponsible act. NASA called upon a Chinese agency to start following “responsible standards”. According to NASA “Spacefaring nations should minimize the hazards to lives and property on Earth due to re-entries of space objects. They ought to maximize transparency relating to re-entry operations”. These observations came from NASA’s administrator Bill Nelson.
Meanwhile, the media representing the Chinese government dismissed the criticism. They termed NASA’s statement as hoax and false accusation on Chinese Space Agency.
There was a huge concern around the debris crashing site. This was due to the fact that the first Long March 5B flight debris crashed in Ivory Coast. The crash caused a lot of damages to homes in a village.
After all this, China is expected to go forward with more launches for its space station program. China plans to finish its program of space station by next year.
