After China carried out its latest launch of a massive rocket on Sunday afternoon, concerns have once again been raised that debris from the rocket could crash into the Earth’s surface at an unpredictable location. This weekend’s launch of a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang launch site off the south coast of the Chinese mainland was carried out to take a new laboratory module to be added to China’s Tiangong Space Station. Because the rocket is so massive (176 feet tall and weighing over 900 tons) and has a risky launch design, some fear its first stage could fail to burn up on reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Experts believe the chances of debris hitting a populated area are low, but that the risk of it happening at all is an unnecessary one for Chinese authorities to be taking. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson previously accused Beijing of “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris.”
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