Next week, the top of a rocket will hit the Moon. We are now sure of this. But the rest of the details of this story are not so clear. The space junk, first thought to be part of a SpaceX rocket, was later identified as part of a Chinese rocket from China’s Chang’e-5 T1 pilot mission.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin denies that it is a Chinese rocket part. Wenbin said at a press conference, “According to China’s observations, the upper stage of the Chang’e-5 mission rocket safely fell into the Earth’s atmosphere and completely burned down. China’s efforts in the field of aviation always comply with international law. We ensure the long-term sustainability of outer space activities. “We are seriously committed to protecting it and are ready to engage in extensive exchanges and cooperation with all parties,” he said.
Wang Wenbin is right when he says that the upper stage of the Chang’e-5 rocket burned up in the Pacific in 2020. It was the mission that landed on the Moon, collected samples for the first time in 40 years, and returned to Earth.
But this is a different mission, Chang’e-, launched in 2014 to test the technology used on the Chang’e-5 mission at the time, said astronomer Bill Gray, who was tracking the rocket that was about to hit the Moon. It looks like a relic of the 5 T-1 missions. So his claim, contrary to China’s explanation, is that the rocket belongs to China…
While it’s very difficult to confirm whether this is really a Chinese rocket, there is independent evidence outside of Gray’s orbital calculations. A team from the University of Arizona has made observations that agree that the object heading towards the Moon resembles a Chinese rocket.
Associate Professor Vishnu Reddy, co-leader of the Space Domain Awareness lab, said in a statement: “We took a spectrum (which can reveal the material structure of an object) and compared it to similar types of Chinese and SpaceX rockets and it matches a Chinese rocket.” The statement continued: “This is the best match and we have the best possible evidence at this point.”
High-orbit space junk isn’t tracked by any space agency, so there’s a lot of uncertainty about who a rocket might belong to. For example, the fact that the SpaceX rocket, originally believed to be this object, is now in space, and it is unknown where it went.
The rocket fragment is expected to arrive somewhere in or near the Hertzsprung crater on the far side of the Moon on March 4 at 12:25 UTC. The crater is located at the lunar equator and is known to have a mass concentration at its center…
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