Quote:A May 4 update from the Aerospace Corporation predicts reentry will occur May 9 at 12:37 a.m. Eastern (04:37 Universal time), with a margin of error of plus or minus 28 hours.
Russian space agency Roscosmos also stated May 4 that its Automated Warning System on Hazardous Situations in Outer Space (ASPOS OKP) indicated that the Long March 5B was set for an uncontrolled reentry.
Calculations by Russian experts indicate a reentry window of 9:00 p.m. May 7 to 4:00 p.m. May 9 Eastern, with more refined predictions to follow in the coming days.
China has yet to comment on the status of the Long March 5B. The country is planning 10 more launches through 2022 of various spacecraft and launch vehicles to construct its three-module space station.
China is currently preparing to send the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft to Tianhe in the next few weeks using a Long March 7 rocket. A first crewed mission, Shenzhou-12, is expected to send three astronauts to the new orbital outpost in June.
Notably, two more launches of the Long March 5B are expected in 2022 to send the Wentian and Mengtian experiment modules to join Tianhe in orbit.
It is unknown if the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), which designed and manufactures the Long March 5B, has planned alterations to the rocket or launch profile which would allow the core stage to either deorbit or fall to Earth on a ballistic trajectory.
The Long March 5B was designed specifically for launching modules for the Chinese space station into low Earth orbit. A test flight in 2020 also saw the core stage reach orbital velocity. That incident saw the stage reenter over the Atlantic Ocean with local reports suggesting debris from that 20-ton stage appears to have survived reentry and landed in the African nation of Côte d’Ivoire.
Space News: https://spacenews.com/chinese-rocket-sta...und-may-8/
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