Live: the out-of-control Chinese rocket is approaching Earth and it is not known where it will land

05/07/2021 10:12 AM

• Clarín.com

• Technology

Updated 05/07/2021 10:35

The remnants of the Chinese

Long March-5B Y2

rocket 

continue to spin out of control in the atmosphere and are expected to enter Earth sometime over the weekend, although no one knows exactly where.

The risk that the Chinese rocket that was left out of control after separating from the Beijing space station causing damage to an inhabited place is "extremely low," said authorities in that country, after the United States warned of a possible danger.

"The probability of causing damage is extremely low,"

said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, noting that "most of the components will be destroyed" upon entering the atmosphere.

The authorities "will report the situation in a timely manner," he added, after yesterday US military experts indicated that the Long March 5B rocket

could hit the surface between Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 May

.

The Long March-5B Y2 rocket, carrying the Tianhe module, takes off from the Wenchang Spaceship Launch Site in Hainan province.

(Xinhua)

China yesterday launched the first of the three elements of its space station, the CSS, which was propelled by a Long March 5B rocket, and it is the body of this rocket that will land in the coming days.

After the separation of the space module, the launcher began to orbit the planet in an irregular trajectory, slowly losing height,

making almost impossible any prediction about its point of entry into the atmosphere

, and therefore its point of fall.

The space race

The conquest of space is the last great bet of the Asian giant.

(AFP photo)

China invested billions of dollars in its space exploration program

, to reflect its growing global profile and technological might, following in the footsteps of the United States, Russia and Europe.

In this way, space became the most recent scene of confrontation between China and the United States.

The launch of the first module of the Chinese space station "Celestial Palace" last April, with

life support equipment and living space for astronauts

, marked a milestone in Beijing's ambitious plans to establish a permanent human presence in space.

President Xi Jinping called it a key step in "building a great nation of science and technology."

With the withdrawal of the International Space Station (ISS), planned for after 2024,

China's will be the only space station in Earth orbit

and while the Chinese space authorities say they are open to foreign collaboration, although they have not stopped clear the scope of that cooperation.

The European Space Agency sent astronauts to China for training to enable them to work on the Chinese space station when it takes over.

China assures that the Long March will cause no harm.

(Xinhua)

China also announced plans in March to build, together with Russia, a separate lunar station

.

The facility, planned for the surface or orbit of the Moon, will be equipped for experimental research and will be China's largest space cooperation project to date.

The Long March 5B rocket is not the first in which China loses control

of a space component returning to Earth.

Its Tiangong-1 space laboratory disintegrated upon re-entry into the atmosphere in 2018, two years after it ceased to function, although Chinese authorities denied losing control of the spacecraft.

With information from agencies.