China’s 22-Ton Long March 5B Cores Reentered 4 Times, Drawing Criticism Over Design Choice
Updated
Updated · KeepTrack · Aug 4
China’s 22-Ton Long March 5B Cores Reentered 4 Times, Drawing Criticism Over Design Choice
3 articles · Updated · KeepTrack · Aug 4
Summary
Four Long March 5B core stages fell back uncontrolled in 2020-2022, with debris reaching Ivory Coast, the Indian Ocean, the Sulu Sea and the Pacific.
The roughly 22-ton cores are designed to reach orbit without a restartable engine, making an uncontrolled reentry about a week after launch effectively unavoidable.
Mahounou in Ivory Coast saw metal pipes land in 2020, while later flights came down near the Maldives, over waters near Borneo and into the Pacific as China rapidly built its space station.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the repeated falls showed China was not meeting responsible debris standards and criticized limited trajectory-data sharing after the 2022 events.
Among the largest uncontrolled reentries on record, the Long March 5B stands out because the risk was repeated by design, even though no confirmed human casualty from reentering debris exists.