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BEIJING (Reuters) – China warned that rocket debris would hit an area of the South China Sea on Tuesday, following the sixth deployment of its maximum rugged launcher 11 days ago.
The rocket’s debris, which burns up in the environment upon re-entry, is expected to fall from China’s island province of Hainan between 11:00 a. m. (0300 GMT) and noon (0400 GMT), the China Maritime Safety Administration said.
China introduced a Long March Five rocket from the Wenchang launch site in Hainan on Dec. 15, the sixth launch of such a rocket since its first flight in 2016. A variant of the rocket, the Long March fiveB, was used in the past to send the Chinese probe to Mars, as well as its space station modules.
The 2021 launch of the Long March 5B has sparked fear due to hypotheses about where the wreckage would land. In 2020, debris from a Long March 5B fell on Côte d’Ivoire, damaging several buildings.
Earlier this month, the Long March Five project effectively introduced what Chinese state media described as “a high-orbit remote-sensing optical satellite. “The rugged rocket is used to release very gigantic payloads.
The “satellite” will be used in land surveys, crop yield assessments, environmental management, meteorological warning and forecasting, and disaster prevention and relief, said the official Xinhua news agency.
Xinhua also reported at press time that the payload fairing on top of the rocket measured 18. 5 meters (60. 7 feet), much longer than the usual 12,267 meters, suggesting an ancient and rare giant “satellite. “No satellite photographs have been made public.
The unusual payload suggested that it would be a high-altitude satellite that would hover over Earth in a constant location, allowing it to regularly navigate a certain area from its position.
(Reporting via Ryan Woo; Editing via Tom Hogue)
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