China’s space program has so far failed to determine precise trajectories when parts of a rocket crash. Boosters and rocket stages crash after a launch instead uncontrolled back to the earth’s surface. This not only endangers people in China, but in the case of the largest launch vehicles, people around the world. NASA and many other space agencies use the practice sharply criticized. Now China seems to be showing insight and that mitigate problem to want.
Soft landing like on a mattress
Like the Chinese TV station CCTV in a new post reports, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) plans to develop one Rocket Booster Parachute System the Long March 3B, 3C and 2F launch vehicles. The boosters are usually dropped at a height of around 50 kilometers when they are launched. So far, along the missile trajectory, they are somewhere in an area 30-90 kilometers long crashed to earth. In the future, they should land gently on parachutes.
In the article, CASC chief technician Teng Haishan even speaks of a “landing bed” that is to be built around the rocket boosters soft as on a mattress to let land. This should also be the case for the boosters in the future recycled can become. So you create more safety for people and do recycling. How Gizmodo reportsthe larger crashing issue still remains unsolved.
Global threat
This affects the launch vehicle Long March 5B. A part of it reaches the earth orbit to eventually crash uncontrollably. That can almost all around the world happen. Only last November there were concerns around the world about where a 21.6 tons heavy stage of the rocket would hit the surface of the earth. In the end it was the eastern Pacific, but debris also landed on the Mexican coast.
There are also smaller Chinese rocket types, the one threat to humans represent. Just a few days ago, part of a Chang Zheng 2D launch vehicle entered Earth’s atmosphere over Texas. The rocket stage had some sort of sail on board to speed up the crash, but the crash site can still not restricted become.
