Giant Chunk of Russia's Satellite Angara A5 Space Junk Crashes To French Polynesia

A piece of a botched Russian rocket launch re-entered the atmosphere uncontrollably on Wednesday. According to officials, it landed in an empty sea region east of French Polynesia.

Space.com said Persei spent nine days in the air after being trapped with a fake payload during a test mission on Dec. 27. Persei seemed to have dug its own grave when it failed to restart for a second engine burn that would have lifted it from low Earth orbit to a far higher geostationary orbit.

On Dec. 27, scientists launched the Angara-A5 heavy-lift rocket, named after a river in Siberia, for the third time from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. According to state-run media, the goal was to conduct the first-ever test of a new upper-stage rocket known as the Persei booster.

Persei was a colossal shard of space junk. It weighed around 21.5 tons (19.5 metric tons) on Earth during its successful launch, although most of that was fuel. According to Anatoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.com, the fuel was presumably expelled during the stage's stay in orbit. Thus, the portion that came back to Earth weighed roughly 3.5 tons (3.2 metric tons).

Giant Russian Rocket Part From Failed Launch Reenters Earth

In a tweet, Astronomer Jonathan McDowell predicted the space junk to reenter between 3:37 p.m. EST (2027 UTC) and 4:21 p.m. EST (2121 UTC).

However, the reentry time has gone, McDowell said in another tweet Wednesday afternoon. The 18th Space Control Squadron reported the reentry happened at 4:08 p.m. EST over the South Pacific on Wednesday. They did not disclose more details.

According to McDowell, who analyzes publicly accessible tracking data, most of the rocket body very definitely burnt up in Earth's atmosphere today. As a result, don't expect to see any massive, flaming craters (if any pieces came down over terra firma).

What Happens When Space Junk Hits Earth?

Any surviving debris will do minimal damage, McDowell said on Twitter. He added the junk could dent some poor person's roof, but it won't wipe out humanity.

In that example, he responded to a follower who wondered if the Persei catastrophe would be similar to the situation depicted in the satirical film "Don't Look Up," which follows the narrative of two scientists attempting to warn people of a giant comet hurtling toward Earth in 2021.

Lottie Williams. is the only person known to be struck by space junk in Texas in 1997, CNN said.

In a tweet, McDowell stated that he did not consider this object a substantial threat. Some debris may reach the ground during reentries for an object with a dry mass of roughly 4 tonnes, but not much.

In a contentious case of large space trash fall, Science Times said the 23-ton core stage of a Chinese Long Mar. 5 B launcher crashed down after 10 days in Earth orbit in May 2021.

On Apr. 28, the Long Mar. 5 B successfully launched the core module for China's future space station. The rocket's core stage made it all the way to orbit that day, rather than crashing into the water as most first-stage boosters do on most launches, becoming a piece of space debris. As a result, there is a debate.

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