A 23-ton rocket will crash into Earth over the weekend  

Once again, unknown where

Last Monday, China successfully launched the third and final piece of the Tiangong space station. The Long March 5B rocket that carried the Mengtian module, however, remains in orbit. Unlike most modern missiles that are designed to fall into the Pacific Ocean immediately after completing their mission, the 23-ton Long March 5B has an uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere, so no one can predict where it will land.

Calculations show that the rocket – which is the size of a 10-storey apartment building – will fall to Earth sometime over the weekend. Most of it is expected to burn up in the atmosphere, but its size is so large that some pieces will reach the surface, perhaps 20-40%.

The areas that can fall cover 88% of the human population. However, since the population is concentrated in a few places, the odds say it will fall into an uninhabited area. Estimates of its trajectory are improving by the hour as the rocket nears re-entry into the atmosphere.

This is the fourth time a Chinese missile has threatened human lives and property. The previous ones, in 2020, 2021 and July 2022, had no victims. But the 2020 one caused property damage when it fell near two villages in Ivory Coast.

Missiles are fired all the time and there is rarely concern about their re-entry. So I wonder why this is happening? Is it just complete disregard for international rules? Or is it simply a new rocket that was not properly designed for a controlled re-entry? If you roll the dice too many times, we’re going to have casualties at some point. – John Logsdon, Space Policy Institute