On Sunday, May 9, the debris of the Chinese heavy launch vehicle Changzheng-5B, which went out of control after the launch, entered the Earth's atmosphere and fell into the Indian Ocean. Most of the debris burned up, according to a statement from the China Manned Flight Program.
“At 10.24 (5.24 Moscow time), the debris of the Changzheng-5B carrier rocket re-entered the Earth's atmosphere … Most of the debris burned up upon entering the Earth's atmosphere,” the statement said.
As specified, the place where the debris of the launch vehicle fell in the water area at the point with coordinates 72.47 degrees east longitude and 2.65 degrees server latitude.
Recall that the CZ-5B launch vehicle was launched from the Wenchang cosmodrome in China on April 29 and launched the Tianhe (Milky Way) base module into orbit for the future national space station of the PRC. However, on Tuesday, May 4, a message appeared that the 18-ton second stage of the spacecraft was returning uncontrollably to the planets and that the period from May 8 to May 10 could fall anywhere on the planet. Since then, experts and analysts have put forward several different versions of where the rocket debris could fall.
