Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum
What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Printable Version

+- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com)
+-- Forum: Culture (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-49.html)
+--- Forum: Astronautics (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-136.html)
+--- Thread: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters (/thread-7034.html)

Pages: 1 2


What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Yazata - May 1, 2019

The Chinese say that they want to develop rockets that they can land and re-fly, Falcon 9 style, but that's years off.

Until then, given that 3 of 4 Chinese launch sites are in the interior of highly populated areas (most of China is highly populated), you get this:  

https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1123164550545723392

China Aerospace Science and Technology Group, who launched the rocket in the little video, says: "The launch of the Tianji No.2 satellite is the first mission of Changsiyi B in 2019... Last year, the Chang 4 B rocket and the the Chang 4 C rocket both carried out 6 launch missions. The total number of missions of the two rockets will be increased to about 10 this year."

I bet the people downrange will be overjoyed to learn that one of these flying bombs will be coming down on their heads like a WWII German V-2 about once a month. But this is relatively poor interior China with is considered kind of expendable in China's ascent to challenge the US. Besides, if any of the locals complain too much, they might be introduced to a labor camp.

This is why the US launches over the ocean. Russia is launches over land, but it's sparsely populated areas in Siberia (or Kazakhstan, which is pretty empty too). China launches over densely populated areas.


[Image: D5ZIFc5W4AEUScj.png]
[Image: D5ZIFc5W4AEUScj.png]




RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - C C - May 1, 2019

(May 1, 2019 05:07 AM)Yazata Wrote: . . . Until then, given that 3 of 4 Chinese launch sites are in the interior of highly populated areas (most of China is highly populated), you get this:  https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1123164550545723392

[added] "Ugh. Here's the latest edition of toxic hydrazine rocket stages falling on inhabited areas following a Chinese orbital launch."

[...] I bet the people downrange will be overjoyed to learn that one of these flying bombs will be coming down on their heads like a WWII German V-2 about once a month. But this is relatively poor interior China with is considered kind of expendable in China's ascent to challenge the US. Besides, if any of the locals complain too much, they might be introduced to a labor camp.

This is why the US launches over the ocean. Russia is launches over land, but it's sparsely populated areas in Siberia (or Kazakhstan, which is pretty empty too). China launches over densely populated areas.


Yep, that's the "nice" thing about an irreligious land sporting state atheism and a scientism outlook. At least in the context of not having to waste extra time and resources on citizen welfare, safety setbacks, overly refined rights and social justice concerns (especially with regard to those flyover hillbilly zones).

Nothing sacred, special, and mysterious about a human individual -- such is just a bundle of biological clockwork. Add the heavily surplus population and that makes those bipedal, Newtonian machines indeed all the more expendable (when necessary). In the name of technological progress and speedier global furthering of Sino empowerment.


RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Yazata - Nov 23, 2019

More on what rains down from the sky in rural China:

https://twitter.com/LaunchStuff/status/1198241993383718912

This twitter page, from Estonia I believe, has lots of photos and information on Chinese boosters that came down not only on rural Chinese towns and villages, but on Thailand and Cambodia besides. On account of the sharp edges of torn pieces of metal, they call it "razor rain". Very deadly. I don't know about casualties, I'm sure that inside China the Chinese government censors anything about that.

It appears that local Chinese put these photos on weibo, a very popular (in China) Chinese knockoff of twitter, this Estonian guy downloads them to his computer, so when the Chinese posts are quickly taken down, he still has them and posts them on his twitter page.

Edit: The photo I linked to this morning on weibo is now deleted. The one below is from Launchstuff.

https://twitter.com/LaunchStuff


[Image: EKEDKjCWwAEvFXB?format=jpg&name=large]
[Image: EKEDKjCWwAEvFXB?format=jpg&name=large]




RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - C C - Nov 24, 2019

The far left seems to have contempt for flyover country wherever it's located. China does warn residents in the potential drop zones and issues safety instructions. But since their space agency launches will be accelerating in number for some time, the communist blitz on their own hillbilly proletariat will continue. Time for the latter to be building bunkers for the long haul. It's all for the good of the state, especially coastal metropolitan areas and provinces that matter. Make the sacrifice, yokels.


RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Yazata - Apr 21, 2020

The Chinese tried to launch a communications satellite for Indonesia with a Long March 3B rocket the other day. The satellite failed to reach orbit and reentered in a fireball over Guam.

Video shot in Guam here

https://twitter.com/PostGuam/status/1248251873095610369

But, as usual, the first stage came back down in a populated part of rural China. Photos from Chinese social media here:

https://www.weibo.com/3279752321/ICRceriId?type=comment

gb


[Image: 138577771_15744917615981n.jpg]
[Image: 138577771_15744917615981n.jpg]




RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Yazata - May 2, 2021

Speaking of spent Chinese rocket boosters crashing down on people's heads, the Chinese are doing it to the rest of the world too. On Wednesday they launched the first module of their new more ambitious 'Tianhe' space station with a Long March 5B rocket. The space station module achieved its intended orbit.

And what's more... the huge core booster stage also (barely) achieved orbit and its low orbit is grazing the thin top of the atmosphere and rapidly decaying. The normal procedure in these kind of cases is to perform a short burn to deorbit the booster in a safe spot in the ocean usually.

But... that hasn't happened. Ground based telescopes appear to show the booster spinning uncontrolled in orbit as the sun flashes off of it.  It's big, China's largest rocket, about 30 meters long, 5 meters wide and weighs 22.5 metric tons.

Large bits of it a likely to survive reentry and will leave a mark if they hit your head. At this point it's impossible to predict where and when on earth it might fall.

https://spacenews.com/huge-rocket-looks-set-for-uncontrolled-reentry-following-chinese-space-station-launch/

This was China's second launch of their big Long March 5B. The first launch also saw that booster make an out-of-control entry, mostly over the Atlantic that time. That one left a trail of rocket-bits along its orbital flight path and some of them fell in a town in the Ivory Coast. Luckily nobody of the ground was hurt, but it easily could have killed people.

Photo from the Ivory Coast of some of the plumbing from the first Long March 5B


[Image: EX006jhX0AIBTd7?format=jpg&name=medium]
[Image: EX006jhX0AIBTd7?format=jpg&name=medium]




RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Yazata - May 8, 2021

The Long March 5B core stage is expected to reenter sometime in the next 8 hours.

Here's it's orbital track over that time with the dark blue line showing where it might come down (Roscosmos graphic)

One of its orbits passes right over Washington DC, three of its orbits pass over Spain and Portugal, two over southern Italy and different orbits pass over Perth and Sydney Australia.


[Image: E02sq7tWQAMV7gj?format=jpg&name=large]
[Image: E02sq7tWQAMV7gj?format=jpg&name=large]




RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Yazata - May 9, 2021

Reports that the Chinese Long March 5B core stage has reentered. Location seems to have been in the Indian Ocean southwest of India in the vicinity of the Maldive Islands.

https://twitter.com/roscosmos/status/1391239925413056514

From Roscosmos


[Image: E06tSSWXMAkLrny?format=jpg&name=large]
[Image: E06tSSWXMAkLrny?format=jpg&name=large]




RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - Yazata - May 10, 2021

Re-entry Thoughts from The Daily Hopper


[Image: E0-pqqKWUAAFL6n?format=jpg&name=large]
[Image: E0-pqqKWUAAFL6n?format=jpg&name=large]




RE: What Happens with Spent Chinese Rocket Boosters - C C - Jul 29, 2022

A 25-ton Chinese rocket booster will crash to Earth Saturday. What's the risk?
https://www.livescience.com/chinese-rocket-booster-third-uncontrolled-reentry

EXCERPTS: The core stage of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth next week, in a reentry that China is tracking closely and has said poses little risk. [...] predicted to reenter Earth's atmosphere on July 30 at 7:24 p.m. ET, give or take 16 hours,

[...] The first stage of a rocket, its booster, is typically the bulkiest and most powerful section. Usually, the trajectories of rocket boosters are planned so they avoid orbit and plop harmlessly into the ocean or, if they do make it to orbit, perform a controlled reentry with a few bursts from their engines. But the Long March 5B booster engines cannot restart once they have stopped, dooming the booster to spiral around Earth before landing in an unpredictable location.

This is the third time in two years that China has disposed of its rockets in an uncontrolled manner. In the second instance, in May 2021, the rocket debris landed harmlessly in the Indian Ocean. But the first incident, in May 2020, caused metallic objects to reportedly rain down upon villages in the Ivory Coast, although there were no reported injuries.

Due to their massive size, Long March 5B boosters can be especially risk-prone during uncontrolled reentry, meaning significant portions of their mass don't burn up safely in the atmosphere... (MORE - missing details)