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Mengtian Long March 5B Core Stage Reentry Update and Discussion Thread


SunlitZelkova

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This is a thread to share updates on the status of the core stage of the Long March 5B LV that launched the Mengtian module on October 31st, 2022.

This has been created because sharing of news has picked up quite a bit on the CNSA thread compared to when Tianhe was launched, and therefore the core stage merits a separate thread to avoid losing Mengtian and other CNSA related news in the flood of core stage updates- it took 10~ days or so for the core stage to reenter the first time and attracted quite a bit of discussion.

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According to the previous one, Wentian Module's launching, the first Announcement of Orbital Parameters of the Rocket Upper Stage Debris, issued by the CMS official website, was published two days after the launch. it then went on to publish one each day, four in total. Until the fifth one, "CZ-5B Y3 rocket upper stage wreckage has re-entered the atmosphere", four days later.

These reports can tell you the perigee and apogee, as well as orbital inclination. But visually draw the lines on the map, you may have to do it yourself.

Edited by steve9728
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Where did the previous ones fall again? Côte d'Ivoire, Sea, Borneo?

On 10/28/2022 at 1:33 PM, Minmus Taster said:

Image

Time to place our bets

Of course, it's futile to bet on what's essentially a dice roll, but I count 64 squares above, of which 38 mostly feature empty ocean. Splashdown somewhere wet and/or uninhabited seems to be overwhelmingly likely. Still, the chance of it hitting somewhere people are pointing weapons at each other and itching for any excuse to pull the trigger seems to be at least a few percent, which should be grounds for major concern and lead any decent space agency to take actions to lower the risk. There are also a string of pretty major metropolitan areas over most of row 1.

Still, though ... the Earth is mostly covered in water. If I had to make a guess, that's where I'd place it. Water.

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One of the worlds I made for space what-ifs has Mengtian’s core stage slamming into the uninhabited Saudi desert. Many voices are raised over what happened but nothing really comes of it beyond harsh statements back and forth.

It will be interesting to see if my fiction becomes reality!

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23 hours ago, steve9728 said:

CMS's official Weibo: The orbital parameters of the wreckage of the CZ-5B Y4 rocket are: perigee 170.8km, apogee 301.4km, inclination 41.6°.

Interesting that this is a significantly lower perigee than in prior launches. With the last one, the initial orbital parameters were a perigee of 182.5 km and an apogee of 299.3 km. By the time the perigee had dropped to ~170 km, the apogee was already down to ~232 km and it was very close to re-entry.

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6 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Definitely coming down much more rapidly this time, likely thanks to the low perigee.

2022-143B_307L.png?itok=x3BbEAVn

Looks like it will come down over DC (where I am) if it is just 27 minutes later than the current estimated splashdown point.

In a 6-hour window.

Lovely.

That would be really wild if a Chinese rocket crashed into Washington DC.

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2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Norwegian news is that airspace in part of Spain was closed because of this rocket but is opening again.

What a good excuse for someone's fail-up.

"The flight is delayed to let the Chinese rocket pass by."

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CMS's official Weibo/CMS's official website: According to the results of the monitoring analysis, the wreckage of the CZ-5B Y4 rocket has re-entered the atmosphere on 4 Nov 2022 18:08 CST. The landing zone is in the sea around 101.9° W, 9.9° N. The vast majority of the devices were destroyed by ablation during re-entry.

I search this location on the google earth:

image.png

Altitude at this point -3675m. The nearest cities in Mexico are around 770~800km away. The place here is ok but just a bit scary. 

Edited by steve9728
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This reoccurring huge booster random reentry thing is a bit mind boggling given the CCP's normal hypersensitivity to how they are perceived with regards to technical advancement.  They have to know how this, and dropping lower boosters on their villages, looks to the rest of the world.  They focus on the omelette, not the eggs, I guess

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