Chinese rocket debris reenters atmosphere, mostly burning up

A Long March-7 Y9 carrier rocket carrying cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-8 blasts off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province, Nov. 15, 2024. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu)

BEIJING, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Debris from the recently launched Long March-7 Y9 carrier rocket fell back to Earth late on Sunday night, with the vast majority of the remnants burning up during the reentry process, the China Manned Space Agency said.

The reentry took place around 9:49 p.m. (Beijing time), the agency said in a brief statement, noting that debris from the second stage of the rocket eventually landed in Atlantic Ocean waters located at a latitude of 28.3 degrees north and a longitude of 52.9 degrees west.

Carrying the Tianzhou-8 cargo craft to deliver fresh supplies to China's space station, the rocket lifted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan on Nov. 15.

Long March-7 is China's new-generation medium-lift launch vehicle. It has a low Earth orbit payload capacity of 14 tonnes and can meet the requirements for sending cargo craft into orbit to dock with the orbiting space station.