Another big Chinese rocket launched to space on Sunday at 2:22 p.m. Beijing time, and once again, no one knows where or when it will come down.
It will be a replay of two earlier launches of the same rocket, the Long March 5B, which is one of the largest currently in use. For about a week after launch, the world’s watchers of space debris will be tracking the 10-story, 23-ton rocket booster as wisps of air friction slowly pull back it back down.
The chance that it will strike anyone on Earth is low but significantly higher than what many space experts consider acceptable.
The powerful rocket was designed specifically to launch pieces of China’s Tiangong space station. The latest mission lifted Wentian, a laboratory module that will expand the station’s scientific research capabilities. It will also add three more spaces for astronauts to sleep and another airlock for them to conduct spacewalks.
Completing and operating the space station is described in state media broadcasts as important to China’s national prestige. But the country has taken some damage to its reputation during earlier flights of the rocket.
After the first Long March 5B launch in 2020, the booster re-entered over West Africa, with debris causing damage but no injuries to villages in the nation of Ivory Coast.
The booster from the second launch, in 2021, splashed harmlessly in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. Still, Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, issued a statement criticizing the Chinese. “It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris,” he said.
China rejected that criticism with considerable fanfare. Hua Chunying, a senior spokeswoman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused the United States of “hype.”
“The U.S. and a few other countries have been hyping up the landing of the Chinese rocket debris over the past few days,” Ms. Hua said. “To date, no damage by the landing debris has been reported. I’ve seen reports that since the launch of the first man-made satellite over 60 years ago, not a single incident has occurred where a piece of debris hit someone. U.S. experts put the chances of that at less than one in a billion.”
China’s space agencies did not respond to a request for an interview about the upcoming launch.
Space has immense prestige for the Chinese government, which sees each major launch as adding to its accumulation of space power, said Namrata Goswani, an author of “Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space.”
China has surpassed Russia in the sophistication of its space program, Dr. Goswani said. “China is ahead when compared to the Russian space program in terms of its lunar and Mars program as well as military space organization,” she said.
On a sunny and warm morning, crowds of China’s space fans spread across the beach near the rocket launch area on Hainan Island in the country’s south. Others crammed onto rooftops at hotels along the beach front.
Zhang Jingyi, 26, set up her camera on a hotel roof along with about 30 others on Sunday morning.
It was her 19th trip to “chase rockets,” she said. She made her hotel reservation four months ago.
“There are more people than ever,” she said.
Ms. Zhang referred to the rocket by the nickname used by aficionados: “Fat Five.” “There will be a small earthquake when it is launched,” she said.
China has landed a rover on the far side of the moon, gathered lunar material and brought it back to Earth for scientific study and landed and operated a rover on Mars. The United States is the only other country to accomplish that last feat.
“China is not and has not done anything the U.S. has not already done in space,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, professor at the U.S. Naval War College and former chair of the National Security Affairs department. “But it is reaching technical parity, which is of great concern to the U.S.”
She likened the Chinese…
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