Chinese Long March 3B upper stage makes uncontrolled reentry over Florida [1:36]

YouTube ^ | November 8, 2025 | Spaceflight Now

[SunkenCiv]

On Saturday, Nov. 8, less than an hour before the planned launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, chunks of metal and other debris were spotted streaking across the sky across Florida. 

Spaceflight Now Photographer John Pisani captured video of what was later determined to be the upper stage of a Chinese Long March 3B rocket that launched back in 2019. 

Chinese Long March 3B upper stage makes uncontrolled reentry over Florida | 1:36 
Spaceflight Now | 383K subscribers | 1,650 views | November 8, 2025

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TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: ccp; china; falcon9; nasa; rocketlab; spacex

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Will Robinson-Smith? Danger! Danger!

[ifinnegan]

They have flaming rockets falling in Chinese cities.

They are not good at their space aeronautics planning.

[ClearCase_guy]

China is attacking Florida? I say it’s Trump’s fault.

[SunkenCiv]

This one took six years to fall, out of control. The ones that fail right away and take out schools etc are actually “Not So Long March” rockets.

[SunkenCiv]

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[butlerweave]

The Chinese could care less where things land

[NorthMountain]

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun Xi Xinping ...

[mikey_hates_everything]

Chinese bastards. Is that why the Starlink launch was postponed at the last minute this morning? It was finally clear and I was up and looking forward to watching the launch, booster reentry and rocket flyover from Myrtle Beach.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[John S Mosby]

Long ago in the days of early US rocket programs, of course there were the Germans from Nazi Germany, spirited away from the Soviets who were trying to kidnap them for life. “We” got them (through iirc the Alsos mission or something of the sort) and they went to work for the USA.

In Huntsville AL (where SpaceForce HQ is moving from Colorado!) at the Redstone Arsenal base, were experts in the field and led by Wernher Von Braun formerly of the Nazi Partei, and the Allegemeine Shutzstaffel (SS) and some 12 others iirc. Lots of crashes and false starts, even firing captured V-2s and developing fuels safer than what they had and aiding US rocketry development a great deal.

A little ditty was around in those days:

“The rockets go up the rockets come down, where they land is not my problem says Wernher Von Braun.”

Lot’s of crashes on Merritt Island, FL Cape Canaveral on federally leased citrus grove private land, and videos exist of those.

The chinese, as per usual and similar to the Soviets, have a casual non-valuing attitude about safety, in launches, astronauts survival, etc (see recent events they can’t leave their own “station” because of defective vehicle. To which any US patriot should say— gee that’s too bad”. No help at all- they would not give it to us.)

[null and void]

IBRMs - Into the Banana River Missiles...

[PghBaldy]

We did bomb their Embassy in Clinton’s Unlawful Balkan war?

[rellic]

The problem with Chinese is they steal
knowledge, they didn’t develop the
“Backbone” so to speak that Russia and America
has spent billions on and millions of man hours.
Even ESA hasn’t got it right yet.
Just because you can make a machine, doesn’t
mean you know how to use it.

[SunkenCiv]

The WWII German program was the fountainhead. The US program is the only legit one, the rest rely on hand-me-downs (USSR to various clients and allies), back engineering (there's a nice shot in "Korolev" of Sergei, in uniform, standing next to a captured V2 engine in 1945), and espionage.

And even the US program had the advantage of having the designer Von Braun and his best associates surrender to US forces.

Thanks to having not only the engineering itself -- captured V2 engines -- but the engineers, the US took the first photos taken from space (1946).

Von Braun's team developed the F1 engine (started in response to the requirements of the h-bomb program) which was finished for NASA (newly created from the predecessor NACA) and ready to go before JFK was in the White House. They also developed the cryofueled upper stages that contributed to the success of the Apollo program.

It didn't hurt to launch from a lower latitude, either, but until the SpaceX superheavy, there's never been a liquid fueled booster like the Saturn V.

[SunkenCiv]

The launch was scrubbed because of rough seas, this has happened before. The unexpected light show doesn't seem to have had any, uh, impact.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Up and down rocket flights over top of the New Mexico bombing ranges for several years. Then they got the designs and guidance and motors so reliable the rockets could actually exceed the range length.

Hence the moves to Cape Canaveral, Vanderbilt, and the VACapes Wallop ranges in the early 50s. (VACapes was closer to the Langley Test Center, hence its popularity.)

[sasquatch]

Different scale but not a few of mine don’t make 10 feet before exploding.
On the other hand a few intended exploders launch.

[sasquatch]

Vanderbilt?

[dennisw]

Tom Lehrer... He died last July and was discussed here