Chinese rocket debris set for re-entry by early Sunday: US R&D centre

The remnants of China's largest rocket, launched last week, are predicted to re-enter the atmosphere late Saturday or early Sunday, according to the US federally funded space-focused research and development centre.

Remnants of China’s largest rocket launched last week are expected to plunge back through the atmosphere late Saturday or early Sunday, the US federally funded space-focused research and development centre said. China’s foreign ministry said on Friday that most debris from the rocket will be burned up on re-entry and is highly unlikely to cause any harm after the US military said that what it called an uncontrolled re-entry was being tracked by US Space Command. Our latest prediction for #LongMarch5B CZ-5B rocket body reentry is 09 May 2021 04:19 UTC ± 8 hours along the ground track shown here. Follow this page for updates: https://t.co/p2AU9zVEpA pic.twitter.com/rsE6yzcnHb — The Aerospace Corporation (@AerospaceCorp) May 7, 2021 In a tweet sent on Friday evening in the United States, the Aerospace Corporation said that the latest prediction for the re-entry of the Long March 5B rocket body by its Centre for Orbital Re-entry and Debris Studies (CORDS) was for eight hours on either side of 0419 GMT on Sunday.