Beijing (AFP)
China judged Friday "extremely low" the probability of damage on Earth related to the fall from space of one of its rockets, which must make this weekend an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
The Asian country launched the first of three elements of its future space station last week.
The launch was carried out with a Long-March 5B rocket.
It is the body of this launcher, still in Earth orbit but which is gradually losing altitude, which must return to Earth.
The point of impact of his fall remains difficult to predict for the moment.
The United States does not rule out that the debris crashed into a populated area and has said it is monitoring the situation closely.
"Due to the technical design of this rocket, the majority of the components will be burned and destroyed when re-entering the atmosphere," Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday.
"The probability of causing damage to air activities or (to people, buildings and activities) on the ground is extremely low," he stressed during a regular press conference.
After the separation of the space module, the launcher began to orbit the planet in an irregular trajectory, slowly losing altitude, making any prediction of its point of entry into the atmosphere almost impossible. .
If it remains intact after re-entering the atmosphere, there is a good chance that the rocket will be damaged at sea because the planet is made up of 70% water.
But it could also crash into an inhabited area or onto a ship.
This is not the first time that China has lost control of a space object during a return to Earth.
In April 2018, the Tiangong-1 space laboratory disintegrated on re-entry into the atmosphere, two years after it ceased to function.
The Chinese authorities had denied that the laboratory had escaped their control.
© 2021 AFP