On April 29, 2021, the wreckage of a Long March 5B rocket that lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Complex in southern China’s Hainan Province will crash to Earth in an “uncontrolled” state in the coming days.
The wreckage of the Chinese Long March 5B remote 2 rocket has crashed into the Indian Ocean on the 9th after its uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere. The uncontrolled rocket once triggered global panic. In sharp contrast, the United States successfully recovered the rocket for the 10th time and was able to reuse it.
According to the Taiwan media “Free Times” reported, Tesla CEO Musk (Elon Musk) founded SpaceX Space’s “Falcon 9” (Falcon9) rocket, 9 is responsible for the implementation of the “Starlink” (Starlink) program 27th launch mission. ) program 27th launch mission. Lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the U.S. successfully sent 60 “Starlink” satellites into orbit to establish a global network.
This time, however, the focus was not on the Starlink satellites, but on the reusable 15-story first stage booster, B1051, the 10th launch and landing of B1051, rewriting a new record for rocket reuse! This was the 10th launch and landing of B1051, which set a new record for rocket reuse!
This is the 10th time this rocket has shuttled between heaven and earth. About eight minutes after launch, Falcon 9’s booster landed on SpaceX’s Just Read the Instructions unmanned barge.
The rocket flew the first International Space Station demonstration mission on the unmanned Crew Dragon spacecraft in March 2019, the RADARSAT satellite “Constellation Mission” for Canada in June 2019, and the SXM-400 spacecraft in March 2019. In addition, SXM-7 and seven Starlink satellite missions have been carried out.
“Starlink is a next-generation satellite network designed to provide broadband Internet access to the world’s population. Implementation of the project began in February 2018. In the first phase of the network, about 12,000 satellites are planned to be launched. So far, SpaceX has launched more than 1,200 Starlink satellites.
The company plans to launch tens of thousands more satellites to build the coverage, network capacity and speed needed to make the project a reality.
In a Feb. 22 tweet, SpaceX founder Musk said the constellation of satellites will actively cover most of the planet by 2021 and complete global coverage by 2022.
SpaceX is currently the only aerospace company that can reuse orbital class rockets on a regular basis, SpaceX’s “fleet” now has a total of seven “Falcon 9” rockets, in addition to B1051, B1049 also just completed its 9th mission four days ago. B1049 completed its ninth mission four days ago. In addition, B1058 and B1060 have each flown seven times, and the latest B1063 has only flown once.
Musk 2020 has said, “I think the booster could probably complete more than 100 flights.”
It is estimated that reusing the boosters could save SpaceX $37 million in manufacturing costs, or 60 percent of the total cost of the rocket.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite program.
Long March rocket wreckage crash nearly hits tourist island
In stark contrast, the Chinese Communist Party has had numerous rocket launch accidents. The latest was a Long March 5B Yao-2 rocket launched from Hainan on April 29, carrying parts of the new space station “Tiangong” into space before the wreckage went out of control and entered the atmosphere.
At 10:24 a.m. on May 9, the wreckage of the Long March 5B Yaoji rocket crashed into the Indian Ocean at 72.47 degrees east longitude and 2.65 degrees north latitude. The crash site was offshore to the southwest of the Maldives, only about 42 kilometers from the nearest inhabited island.
Compared to the wreckage of rocket launches by other countries, the crash site is usually set in remote waters hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away from the nearest land, such as the South Pacific, which is known as the “graveyard of space”.
The wreckage of the Long March 5B Yaoji rocket fell into the sea only 40 kilometers away from the land, which may be a fishing vessel operation site or a commercial ship passing through, and still has a certain degree of danger.
U.S. astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said recently that no space wreckage of more than 10 tons has re-entered the atmosphere uncontrolled since 1990, and that the net weight of the Long March 5B rocket had reached 21 tons.
The wreckage of the Chinese Communist Party’s Long March 5B Yaoji rocket crashed in Ivory Coast, Africa, after its first launch in May 2020, damaging several buildings.
Experts criticize Chinese Communist Party for irresponsibility
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former U.S. senator and former astronaut, said it was clear that the Chinese Communist Party was not responsible. It is clear that the Chinese Communist Party has not met the standards of responsibility regarding its space debris, he said.
Paulo Lozano, director of MIT’s Space Propulsion Lab, told VOA that the Chinese Communist Party certainly bears responsibility for not providing enough information or not doing enough in their design to prevent the spacecraft from returning to Earth uncontrollably.
Lozano said, “I think that’s important, and the cleanup may not be possible at all, especially if these pieces fall into the ocean, where they could very well be lost forever.”
He said a second stage is required in almost all U.S. rocket launches, in which the engines start up again to guide the rocket back to Earth in a designated unoccupied area. Never in the news do you hear that a U.S. rocket is flying uncontrolled and will return to an unspecified location on Earth.
Lozano said this is because usually the rocket stays in orbit for a while, and then the engines kick in to guide the rocket wreckage to the right location at the right time.
Taiwan astrophysicist Wang Binwei said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on the 5th that the launch of a rocket should be well controlled by risk, just like a driver should tie up the cargo of a truck before hitting the road to avoid hitting people with the emergency brake. Some rockets carrying nuclear-powered batteries are clearly thrown into space, and if they are not properly sealed and crashed during delivery, they will pose great danger to the Earth.
China’s rocket launches often have accidents
Communist rocket launches have been a common occurrence, hitting not only villages in Africa, but also China itself.
For example, in May 2012, the wreckage of a Long March rocket crashed into Suining, Hunan Province, damaging people and high-voltage lines; in December 2014, the wreckage of a Long March rocket landed in Fuchuan, Guizhou Province; in April 2020, a Long March rocket and satellite landed in Sichuan Province and were witnessed by the public.
In September of the same year, the Long March 4B rocket sent the “Gaofen 1102 satellite” into space, but one of the rocket boosters fell from the sky and exploded on a hillside next to a residential house 500 kilometers away.
On December 6 of the same year, before the launch of the Long March 3B carrier rocket, Yunnan issued an emergency notice saying that a rocket wreckage would fall in Menghai, Yunnan, and asked people to evacuate. It also threatened netizens that it was strictly forbidden to publish news pictures, videos and remarks in the drop zone, and that it was strictly forbidden to repost followers, and that violators would be held legally responsible.
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