A Chinese rocket booster plummeted to Earth on Friday morning, falling into the Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. Space Command reported that the debris from the Long March 5B rocket re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean at 4:01 a.m. MDT.
Later, the agency said it could confirm a second atmospheric entry correlated with the rocket five minutes later as it exited the Space Command Area of Responsibility over the Northern Pacific Ocean region.
In response, Spain briefly closed the airspace over Catalonia and three other regions, causing hundreds of flight delays.
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China’s space station lab module Mengtian and a Long March 5B Y4 carrier rocket at the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Oct. 31, 2022, in Wenchang, China.
(Hou Yu/China News Service via Getty Images)
China’s most-powerful rocket launched into space in October, carrying the Mengtian module into orbit to attach to the core module of the country’s Tiangong space station.
This is not the first time China has played roulette with the core stage, which was allowed to reach orbit without a system to guide it back to a specific spot on Earth.
In fact, it was the fourth uncontrolled re-entry since 2020.
In July, a 25-ton Long March 5B core tumbled down over the Indian Ocean.
A Long March 5B rocket lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China’s Hainan Province on Oct. 31, 2022.
(CNS/AFP via Getty Images)
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Over the summer, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson spoke out strongly against the decision.
In an emailed statement on Friday, Nelson reportedly echoed those comments, saying China was taking unnecessary risks with the uncontrolled rocket stage re-entry.
“They did not share specific trajectory information, which is needed to predict landing zones and reduce risk. This is the PRC’s fourth uncontrolled re-entry since May 2020, and each of these re-entries have been the largest in last 30 years,” he said. “It is critical that all spacefaring nations are responsible and transparent in their space activities and follow established best practices, especially, for the uncontrolled re-entry of a large rocket body debris – debris that could very well result in major damage or loss of life.”
Administrator Bill Nelson, speaks during a media briefing at NASA headquarters, Oct. 11, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson told Bloomberg News Thursday that Chinese officials were “releasing information to the international society with an open and transparent attitude.”
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According to The New York Times, Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesman, on Friday rejected the notion that China’s handling of the rockets was unusual and said they had been designed with “special technology.”
Fox News Digital’s requests for comment from NASA and the China Manned Space Agency were not immediately returned.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
