Free Republic

Following (Thursday's) yesterday’s launch, the core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket inadvertently went into low Earth orbit. The booster—now spinning out of control—is poised to perform an uncontrolled reentry from orbit, potentially threatening inhabited areas. As SpaceNews reports, the core stage will likely fall from low Earth orbit at some point in the next few days, making it one of the biggest human-made objects to perform an uncontrolled reentry. The gigantic core stage, measuring 98 feet (30 meters) long and 16 feet (5 meters) wide, might burn up during atmospheric reentry, but debris could potentially reach the surface....

On April 28th, China successfully put the core module of their Tianhe space station into orbit with the latest version of the Long March 5B heavy-lift booster. This rocket, designed for launching large objects into low Earth orbit, is unique in that the 33.16 m (108.8 ft) first stage carries the payload all the way to orbit rather than separating at a lower altitude. Unfortunately, despite an international effort to limit unnecessary space debris, the first stage of the Long March 5B booster is now tumbling through space and is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry sometime in the next...