The uncontrolled entry of China’s Long March 5B booster rocket into Earth’s atmosphere was luckily avoided when it crashed into the ocean off the Philippines. But returning space debris often breaks up when it hits the atmosphere, so while it’s still true that the largest component has reportedly descended to 119.0°E, 9.1°N, some seem to have landed close to homes in at least one case. Fears of radioactivity reportedly led to the evacuation of two families.
A paper estimating a 10 percent chance of someone being struck by space debris (and possibly dying) within the next ten years has gone from being undue alarming research to being seen as prescient within a month. When the article was published three weeks ago, in the 65 years since Sputnik 1, there were only four or five confirmed cases of man-made objects hitting land in an uncontrolled return from space.
But since its release, multiple pieces of a SpaceX rocket, one of which is suspected to be almost 3 meters across, have been found scattered over New South Wales, Australia. An even larger bent item has now been spotted in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and two more fragments have been found reported from nearby Sarawak, Borneo.
While it will take time to confirm that each of these fragments came from the Long March 5B rocket, the fact that the main component passed almost over Borneo indicates that this is highly likely.
The 5B rocket was launched on July 24 to bring part of China’s future Tiangong space station into orbit. Although the mission appeared to have been successful, control over the booster rocket was lost, prompting a global pursuit to see where it would land. Atmospheric drift can make space junk’s return time and location extremely unpredictable.
The landing sites of the other fragments are approximately 1,000 kilometers from the landing site of the main fragment, which can help you estimate the scale required for search operations.
Other metal fragments thought to have come from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon rocket were also found in New South Wales. This was a much smaller object than the Long March rocket, showing just how large the Long March fragments could be.
Neither the Chinese government nor SpaceX have yet said whether they will offer compensation for any damage.
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