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LAS VEGAS » A Chinese rocket re-entered the atmosphere near California late Wednesday night around the same time many people shared video on social media of a mysterious bright object streaking across the night sky.
U.S. Strategic Command spokeswoman Julie Ziegenhorn wouldn’t say if the rocket ever posed danger to people on the ground. She says the command often sees re-entries.
Ziegenhorn tells The Associated Press the Chinese CZ-7 rocket re-entered the atmosphere around 11:36 p.m. Central time. That’s about the same time social media lit up with reports from Nevada, Utah and California of a small fireball streaking across the sky.
Ziegenhorn referred all other questions about the rocket to Chinese authorities
Officials from Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada had earlier told KTNV-TV the light was a meteor breaking up.
Just to be clear, the CZ-7 is a new model of what China has heretofore called the “Long March” / “Chang Zeng” series of boosters. This was its maiden flight and the launch actually happened on June 25. The light show was the top stage reentering the atmosphere from earth orbit now a month later.
Note that this is considered a “civilian” launch rather than an ICBM test.
Among spacefaring nations, it isn’t considered particularly polite to allow your hardware to decay from earth orbit and reenter willy-nilly over someone else’s territory. We can cut the Chinese a little slack insofar as this was an uninitiated reentry due to orbital decay rather than a commanded reentry initiated by a retrorocket burn. Presumably our Strategic Command was tracking its orbit and reentry, but for whatever reason decided not to issue an advance notice.
Lets be honest. When it comes to space exploration, China is the little rookie on the block. Nothing of any real substance from their program compared to the USA. No planetary rovers, no spacecraft missions in the pipeline, no space telescopes, nothing leaving the solar system, no people on the moon.
China can’t stand the fact Elon Musk, a private company, has more in high tech space craft than the Chinese do. Sometimes you have got to admit your limitations.
Boring.
Is this true? The US has to rely on the Russians to send our astronauts to orbit now while the Chinese are firing their rockets and sending their taikonauts into space day after day. They’ve sent spacecrafts to the moon and are assembling a space station. What is the US doing?
It’s because the US has already done everything the Chinese are now doing. The Chinese are just playing catch up. They haven’t even sent a man to the moon yet. Don’t buy into the China fear mongering.
Good info!
No such thing as “civilian” when it comes to the ChiComs. ALWAYS be suspicious, NEVER fully trust and ALWAYS be on your guard with them. Simple as that.
I still wouldn’t doubt it might have been an intentional fly by. Now days the Chinese are flexing their muscle around the world.
How true, even rebuking the Hague decision in favor the Philippines in the South China Sea dispute over the fishing atolls near the Philippines.
They love signing on to agreements, treaties and trade pacts but then NEVER honor any decisions in the spirit of all they’ve signed onto, should anything not go in the slightest way to their advantage.
The biggest part of this story is the word “Chinese”. Click bait headline if I ever saw one. Personally I’m rooting for the Chinese to advance their space program, both for civilian and military purposes. Not because I agree with them on every issue, but because by being on par with more advanced nations, they’re on equal footing when it comes to international disputes. Being threatened with sanctions doesn’t have as much sway if your country’s economy is the second largest in the world as opposed the 80th largest.
I saw what I thought was a satellite going west to east right over Maui last night around 7:30 pm but it was probably this rocket.