China’s Long March 5 launches classified satellite; core stage liable to crash anywhere on Earth
China today used its most powerful rocket, the Long March 5, to place a classified military satellite into a high orbit, lifting off from its Wenchang coastal spaceport.
Assuming the rocket headed south or east from Wenchang, its strap-on boosters will fall harmlessly in the ocean. However, based on past Long March 5 launches, the core first stage will reach an unstable low orbit, release its upper stage and payload, and then fall back to Earth within a week or so. And it will be large enough to hit the ground. On past launches the rocket’s engines could not be restarted, so there was no way to control where it would crash. Had that core stage on one launch in 2020 come down 15 minutes earlier, it would have crashed in the New York metropolitan area.
Has China upgraded those engines so they can be restarted to put the stage down in a controlled manner over the ocean? We presently have no idea. Stay tuned because we all may face the possibility of this core stage hitting us.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
91 SpaceX
60 China
16 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 104 to 60, and the entire world combined 104 to 94. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 91 to 94.
China today used its most powerful rocket, the Long March 5, to place a classified military satellite into a high orbit, lifting off from its Wenchang coastal spaceport.
Assuming the rocket headed south or east from Wenchang, its strap-on boosters will fall harmlessly in the ocean. However, based on past Long March 5 launches, the core first stage will reach an unstable low orbit, release its upper stage and payload, and then fall back to Earth within a week or so. And it will be large enough to hit the ground. On past launches the rocket’s engines could not be restarted, so there was no way to control where it would crash. Had that core stage on one launch in 2020 come down 15 minutes earlier, it would have crashed in the New York metropolitan area.
Has China upgraded those engines so they can be restarted to put the stage down in a controlled manner over the ocean? We presently have no idea. Stay tuned because we all may face the possibility of this core stage hitting us.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
91 SpaceX
60 China
16 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 104 to 60, and the entire world combined 104 to 94. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 91 to 94.