MADRID (Reuters) – Spain closed airspace over the northeastern region of Catalonia and three other regions on Friday as the wreckage of a Chinese rocket was expected to pass, Catalonia’s emergency government said on Friday.
“Due to the threat related to the passage of area object CZ-5B in the Spanish air area, flights were totally limited from 09:38 to 10:18 in Catalonia and other communities,” the service said on its Twitter account.
The Long March 5B (CZ-5B), China’s toughest rocket, lifted off from southern China on Oct. 31 to deliver the last module of the newly built Chinese space station.
As gravity returns the rocket to Earth, most of it is expected to burn the re-entry, although there are considerations of what significant parts could survive.
The European Union’s Space Tracking and Surveillance Service said debris would likely re-enter Earth’s environment in the mid-Atlantic and likely land at sea, but also warned that northern Spain, Portugal and southern Italy were also on the prospective trajectory. . of the rocket.
“The statistical probability of the floor having an effect in populated spaces is low,” EUSST said. “These forecasts come with uncertainties, however, and a higher estimate will only be imaginable as the new school year approaches. “
This is the fourth flight of the Long March 5B since its inaugural launch in May 2020.
In its first deployment, fragments of the rocket landed in Ivory Coast, damaging several buildings in the West African country, no injuries were reported.
The wreckage of the moment the flight landed safely in the Indian Ocean, while the wreckage of the third fell into the Sulu Sea in the Philippines.
The rocket’s re-entry into the environment is not an unusual practice abroad, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday at a normal briefing when asked whether China had taken measures for the risks.
“It is understood that the rocket he discussed uses a special generation designed so that the vast majority of parts are destroyed by ablation upon re-entry, and the probability of damaging air and ground activities is incredibly low,” Zhao said.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, Joan Faus, Corina Pons and Charlie Devereux in Madrid and Martin Quin Pollard and Ryan Woo in Beijing; editing by Alison Williams)
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