The Long March 5B launch vehicle (Long March 5B) launched by the Chinese Communist Party has gone out of control, and the U.S. Department of Defense issued a statement saying that Space Command has kept track of the Long March 5B and tracked it in time on the Internet. The Chinese official media and so-called experts immediately came out to wash their hands of the matter and defend themselves, but the more they portrayed it, the darker it became.
On April 29, the CCP launched the Long March 5B rocket carrying the space station’s “Tianhe core module” from the Wenchang spaceport in Hainan, and its 21-ton core section was found to have “fallen out of control” and is now “tumbling” in space. Tumbling”.
The U.S. military issued a statement saying that it had been informed of the Long March 5B’s movements and was doing its best to track its location. According to CNN, Defense Department spokesman Mike Howard said in a statement that the Long March 5B rocket is expected to enter the Earth’s atmosphere “around May 8.
The 18th Space Control Squadron at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, is currently providing daily live updates on the Long March 5B’s location through the Space Orbit website (https://www.space-track.org/auth/login).
The site provides information on all satellites and debris orbiting the Earth for a global audience to access. The most prominent position on the current home page reads, “If you are looking for news on the Long March 5B rocket (2021-035B) Tracking and Impact Prediction (TIP, or the rocket’s likely impact), click this link to stay updated, with the latest news displayed at the top.”
Howard said the Long March 5B’s “entry into Earth’s atmosphere will not be confirmed until hours before it re-enters the planet.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby also said Wednesday that Space Command is tracking the Chinese rocket, but “it’s too early to discuss a solution and we need to get a better sense of where it’s going.
Jonathan McDowell of Harvard University explained that the rocket’s speed of travel makes it nearly impossible to pinpoint the direction of the wreckage’s progress, and that even a small change in conditions could significantly alter its trajectory.
“We predict that it will re-enter (the atmosphere) between May 8 and 10. It’s going to fly around the world 30 times in a two-day period at 18,000 miles per hour. So if you undercount by one hour, that position is off by 18,000 miles.” He said.
At a White House press briefing on Wednesday, when asked if the U.S. would commit to seeking compensation from the Chinese Communist Party if the Long March 5B rocket caused damage? Press secretary Jen Psaki said, “Not yet, we’re tracking its location through U.S. Space Command, and hopefully that (damage) is not the result of our efforts.”
She added that the U.S. government will work with other members of the international community to “take responsibility for behavior in space” and that “it is in the interest of all nations to take responsibility for behavior in space.”
When the Western media widely reported the loss of control of the Long March 5 rocket wreckage, Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times and other media outlets began to defend the Communist Party’s failed and irresponsible satellite, claiming that the West was “smearing” the Communist Party and quoting Hong Kong military expert Liang Guoliang as saying that the rocket had been used up and did not need to be controlled, so there was no such thing as a “loss of control. “This statement made the netizens up in arms.
And Wang Binwei, an astrophysicist and assistant researcher at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taiwan, said in an interview with Free Asia that the Long March 5B can carry about 20 tons, and it is very irresponsible for the Chinese Communist Party to launch it without proper risk control. He compared it to a driver who should tie up the truck’s cargo before hitting the road to avoid hitting people with the emergency brake. Some rockets carrying nuclear-powered batteries dropped into space would pose a great danger to Earth if they crashed improperly during delivery.
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