Pentagon says it has ‘no plan’ to shoot down ‘out of control’ Chinese rocket

The Secretary of Defence says the US currently has no plans to shoot down an “out-of-control” Chinese rocket that’s falling to Earth.

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin says America has no plans to shoot down debris from an “out-of-control” Chinese rocket that is falling back to Earth.

The Pentagon is following the trajectory of a Chinese rocket that is expected to make an uncontrolled entry into the atmosphere this weekend.

Experts say there is a risk the large piece of space debris, possibly weighing several tonnes, could crash in an inhabited area.

Speaking at a press conference with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Austin said,

“We have the capability to do a lot of things but we don’t have a plan to shoot it down as we speak.”

US has 'no plan' to shoot down Chinese rocket pic.twitter.com/3JQsmT2sC1

— Andrew Backhouse (@Andytwit123) May 6, 2021

He also hit out at China for not doing a better job of controlling the rocket — launched last week to deliver the first module for China’s new space station.

“I think this speaks to the fact that for those of us who operate in the space domain … there should be a requirement to operate in a safe and thoughtful mode,” he said.

The Pentagon believes the rocket will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday.

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Rocket will land in the ocean: China

Chinese media says the space junk will land in international waters when it makes its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

The claims, published in Global Times, a daily tabloid run by the Chinese Communist Party, say reports the Long March 5B rocket is “out of control” and could land in an inhabited area are “hype”.

The Global Times said the situation is “not worth panicking about”.

The article claimed the debris was likely to “burn up during re-entry … leaving only a very small portion that may fall to the ground, which will potentially land on areas away from human activities or in the ocean”.

The debris is believed to weigh several tonnes, and could crash to Earth in the coming weeks, Steve Freeland wrote for The Conversation.

Professor Freeland said because of the Earth’s orbit, it’s difficult to predict where the objects will land, and it could be anywhere within a band of latitudes “a little farther north than New York, Madrid and Beijing, and as far south as southern Chile and Wellington, New Zealand”.

A band plays at the launch of the Long March 5B in China’s Hainan province. Picture: STR/AFP

After separating from the space station, the rocket began to orbit Earth in an irregular pattern. Picture: STR/AFP

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‘Too soon’ to know if action can be taken: Pentagon

The body of the rocket “is almost intact coming down,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

Mr Kirby said it is “too soon” to know whether any action, such as destroying the space debris, can be taken if human-occupied regions are threatened.

“We’re tracking it. We’re following it as closely as we can,” he said.

“It’s just a little too soon right now to know where it’s going to go or what, if anything, can be done about that.”

The April 29 launch was the first of three elements of the planned Chinese space station, CSS, powered by the Long March 5B rocket.

Predictions of re-entry nearly impossible

After its separation from the space station module, the rocket began to orbit Earth in an irregular trajectory as it slowly lost altitude.

These movements mean making predictions about how the junk will fall to Earth are nearly impossible.

It could end up breaking apart upon entry, with only smaller pieces of debris making impact. Experts also note if the rocket falls from the sky mostly intact, there is a good chance it will just splash down into the ocean, as the planet is 70 per cent water.

But neither of those outcomes is certain, and there is a chance the rocket could crash into an inhabited area, or hit a ship.

It is not the first time China has lost control of a spacecraft as it returned to Earth.

The space laboratory Tiangong-1 disintegrated upon re-entry into the atmosphere in 2018, two years after it had stopped working, though Chinese authorities denied they had lost control of it.

– with AFP