Why does this keep happening to China's rockets? 🚀
What comes up must come down, such is the case with nature and with this latest story.
On Saturday, a Chinese rocket sent to space last year returned to Earth, leaving a trail of debris over India and initially spurring rumors that it may have been a comet.The rocket was the third stage of a Long March 3B . It was launched on February 4, 2021, from China’s Xichang satellite launch center and actually made it to orbit where it should have stayed for a long, long time.
However, after about a year it started losing altitude and energy every time it completed a cycle around the earth eventually leading back to its descent and reentry. “Every time the rocket went through perigee it lost some energy due to drag from the atmosphere, and so it didn't go as high to apogee on the next loop: the apogee steadily decreases until you get reentry,” explained astronomer Jonathan McDowell on Twitter.
After launch in Feb 2021 the rocket stage was left in an elliptical orbit with a perigee of about 150 km and an apogee of 34440 km.
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