At the end of January, astronomer Bill Gray, creator of software to calculate the trajectories of asteroids and other objects, announced that the space debris due to crash on March 4 was the second stage of a rocket of the American company SpaceX.
Bill Gray returned to this announcement last week, acknowledging an error, and now claiming that it is part of a Chinese rocket launched in 2014.
When questioned, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied, assuring that the incriminated rocket “had safely reentered the Earth’s atmosphere and had completely burned up”.
beijing “is conscientiously committed to the long-term viability of its space activities”assured the press the spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy, Wang Wenbin.
According to Bill Gray, whose software is used by NASA-funded observation programs, the object in question belongs to a Long March rocket launched during the Chang’e 5 spacecraft’s launch into space. -T1, as part of the Chinese space agency’s lunar exploration program.
China landed a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon in early 2019 – a world first.
The Asian giant has lost control of spacecraft in the past, including in May 2021 when “the major part” of the first stage of a Long March-5B rocket had disintegrated over the Indian Ocean.
In 2020, debris from another Long March crashed into villages in Côte d’Ivoire, causing damage but no injuries.
