BEIJING: China’s space administration announced on Sunday that Debris from a Chinese rocket fell into the Indian Ocean near the Maldives.
It is reported that the debris had burned up on re-entry, but it did not specify whether what remained had landed in the ocean or on one of the Maldives’s 1,192 islands.
The "out-of-control" Chinese Long March 5B rocket "re-entered over the Arabian Peninsula at approximately around 7.45 am India time on Sunday," according to US Space Command that was tracking the rocket.
It was, however, still unknown if the debris impacted land or water. The agency's official Twitter account tweeted: "Everyone else following the LongMarch5B re-entry can relax. The rocket is down." The Long March 5B rocket that launched the first chunk of Beijing's new space station could not be maneuvered or controlled.
Tiangong-1, China's first prototype space station launched in 2011, was another massive object that uncontrollably reentered in 2018 but mostly broke up in the atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean.
The "out-of-control" Chinese Long March 5B rocket will likely splashdown in the ocean on Saturday, according to a report in The Verge. In an earlier statement, the US Space Command had said that "its exact entry point into the Earth's atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry".
US: Firing in daylight kills 4, police shot suspect
Kabul: Afghanistan's massive blast kills over 50
Singapore reducing work pass holders entry in country from India