On the 30th of January, the Chinese rocket ZQ-3 R/B, launched on the 3rd of December, will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and current forecasts indicate that the debris could fall on the territory of the Baltic states, writes RBC Ukraine.
ZQ-3 R/B weighs 11 tons and is more than 12 meters long, which means that the second module of the rocket will most likely not burn up completely in the atmosphere. Debris from the object could also cause disruptions to air traffic. The EU Space Surveillance and Tracking Program (EU SST) is monitoring the object’s movement and has reported that the rocket launched on the 3rd of December probably also had a dummy payload attached, the remains of which could have remained on the second module. Since launch, the rocket has continued to disintegrate in space in an uncontrolled manner.
Current EU SST information indicates that the rocket will enter the Earth’s atmosphere at around 13:20 Latvian time
(11:20 UTC), with a possible deviation of one hour.
This is not the first time that a Chinese rocket has become unpredictable and uncontrollable, writes RBC Ukraine. In the summer of 2022, concerns were raised about the Long March 5B, the wreckage of which nevertheless fell into the Indian Ocean and did not cause damage to populated areas. At that time, NASA called on China to think about designing the rocket’s main module so that it would burn up upon re-entry.
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