China's Long March 5B rocket blasted off Sunday from the Wenchang launch center in Hainan province to the Tiangong space station to add a new module with a solar-powered experimental laboratory.
But experts quoted by The Washington Post consider that its large dimensions (176 feet and more than 1.8 million pounds in weight) and the risky way of launching could cause parts of the rocket not to disintegrate in the atmosphere when they fall and end up hitting the surface.
The Long March 5B before its launch. Future Publishing via Getty Imag
The rocket detached from its first stage (which stores fuel and burns it to allow it to escape Earth's gravity) during liftoff;
this 23-tonne module is now spinning around the planet ever closer to falling.
Its route, according to the experts quoted by the newspaper, is unpredictable, and although the probability of it hitting an inhabited area is very low, they consider that China risks more than necessary.
Just a month ago, a Chinese rocket disintegrated in the sky over the Spanish city of Malaga and fell off the coast of Almeria.
In May, another Chinese rocket returning to Earth partially disintegrated and a large segment fell into the Indian Ocean.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said a few months ago that China "is not meeting the standards of responsibility regarding its space debris," including minimizing the risks of re-entry and transparency of operations.
China's Foreign Ministry defended itself last year, saying the chances of causing damage are "extremely low."
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The Chinese space program has advanced significantly in the last decade under the regime of Xi Jinping, who wanted to turn China into a space power.
Last year it successfully put the Tiangong space station into orbit, which it is now expanding.
But those achievements have raised concerns about a possible space race between powers and, eventually, an increased risk of an accident.
Russia announced on Tuesday that it will leave the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024, ending the most ambitious project of global collaboration that for a long time was a key symbol of cooperation after the Cold War.
Space cooperation between China and the United States has been minimal since 2011, when the Wolf Amendment prohibited NASA from using government funds to work with the Chinese government.