The 23-ton rocket body falls to the ground

On Monday, China successfully launched the third and final part of its new Tiangong space station - and the 23-ton rocket body will fall somewhere on Earth this weekend.

The Mengtian module, on which scientific experiments are carried out, was launched on a Chinese Long March 5B rocket. When it ascended into space, the rocket's main stage gave the space station module one last push into Earth's orbit before separating.

Unlike most modern rocket hulls, which are designed to deliver themselves to a remote part of the Pacific Ocean on their own, the Long March 5B hull descended into its own orbit around the Earth.

According to the plan, it should descend into the atmosphere again - this event is called "re-entry into the atmosphere" - and fall to Earth on Friday or Saturday morning in the eastern time zone.

No one knows where the rocket body will fall, and no one controls it.

Experts can only estimate how many parts of the Long March rocket body, about the size of a 10-storey building, will fall to the Ground. Some of it will probably burn up when passing through the atmosphere, but the rocket body is too large to completely disintegrate.

According to the rule of thumb, from 20 to 40 percent of the mass of a large object will survive after falling in the atmosphere, experts of the Aerospace Corporation said.

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Update:

A giant piece from the first stage of the Chinese Changzheng-2D rocket fell to the Ground and got stuck in crops in the northwestern province of Gansu. A photo of the incident was published by eyewitnesses on the Chinese social network Weibo. The images show a massive metal structure, which is located vertically in freshly treated soil and protrudes about 7 m in height.

The missing part probably belonged to a rocket that China launched on October 29 to put a batch of satellites into orbit. But the Chinese authorities have not yet commented on the incident.