Chinese rocket debris lands near Maldives after disintegrated over Indian Ocean

BEIJING: A large part of a Chinese rocket re-entered the atmosphere and disintegrated over the Indian Ocean on Sunday following fevered speculation about where the 18-tonne object object would come down, according to the Chinese space agency.

The freefalling part of the Long March-5B rocket, which had launched the first module of China's new space station into Earth orbit on April 29, had caused little concern in Beijing.

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“The last-stage wreckage of the Long March 5B Yao-2 launch vehicle reentered the atmosphere at 10:24 (0224 GMT) on May 9, 2021, after monitoring and review”, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office, providing coordinates for a point in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives.

During re-entry, the majority of the segment disintegrated and was destroyed, according to the study.

The re-entry was also verified by Space-Track, a monitoring service that uses US military data.

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Given that water covers 70% of the earth, the segment's descent matched estimates made by some experts that any debris would have splashed down into the ocean.

Despite the low statistical chance, the uncontrolled re-entry of such a large object had raised worries about potential damage and casualties.

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