Chinese Rocket Is a Cloud of Debris After Disintegrating

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China has been reckless with its rockets before, but the Long March 6A rocket breakup wasn’t meant to happen. The rocket’s upper stage was supposed to reenter Earth’s atmosphere in one piece, and burn up during reentry. It’s not clear what went wrong to cause the rocket to break up before its reentry.

The rocket breakup sent debris flying near Starlink’s internet satellites, but Chinese officials are claiming that pieces of the rocket will not threaten other low Earth orbit assets. “As far as we know, the relevant incident will not affect the Chinese space station or the International Space Station,” Mao Ning, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, is quoted in the South China Morning Post as saying during a press conference.

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As of last year, more than 27,000 pieces of space debris were being tracked in orbit by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network, with lots of smaller pieces also floating around undetected.

More: Science Satellite Dodges Threatening Space Junk on Just 8 Hours Notice

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