A huge Chinese rocket is set to fall back to earth in an uncontrolled re-entry after a space station launch.
The 21-ton Long March 5B rocket carried a module of China’s new space station into low Earth orbit last week.
But the 30-meter long rocket itself also reached orbit and will now become one of the largest ever launchers to make an uncontrolled reentry, according to SpaceNews.com.
Experts say that most expendable rockets do not reach a velocity that would take them into orbit and they normally reenter the atmosphere and land in a known reentry zone.
The speed of the rocket means it is orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes and it is passing just north of New York, Madrid and Beijing, and as far south as Chile and Wellington, New Zealand.
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/chi ... 41425.html
I am always wary of hyperbole, and the word huge is perhaps too alarmist, but clearly there is a risk of the debris from the craft falling on populated areas.