BEIJING: China has denied reports that rocket debris from the Chang’e 5 T1 lunar mission will collide with the moon on March 4.

The doomed space junk was first reported by astronomer Bill Gray, who led the Pluto project. In his blog post, Gray initially claimed the debris came from billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket.
However, Gray later predicted that the object was the remains of a Chinese rocket, specifically the Long March 3C that launched China’s Chang’e 5 T1 moon landing mission.

However, China’s foreign ministry denied this claim, according to Space News. “According to China’s monitoring, the upper layer of the Chang’e-5 rocket entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burned completely,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a news conference.

But the missile Gray and others claim came from the Chang’e-5 T1 mission, which was a separate flight. Chang’e 5 T1, the predecessor mission of Chang’e 5, will not launch until 2020.

Most evidence points to debris from the Chang’e 5-T1 mission. “We now have ample evidence that this is indeed the launch vehicle for the 2014-065B, Chang’e 5-T1 lunar landing mission. However, it will still be within a few kilometers of the estimated time of March 4, 2022 12:25 UTC Affect the Moon, within seconds of the estimated time,” Gray wrote in a new blog post last week.

The Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission tested the technology needed to bring back samples from the moon in 2014.

Gray’s conclusion that the object was a Chinese rocket was also supported by analysis by a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Arizona, The Verge reported.

However, the Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron, which tracks space debris, said on its tracking website that it burned up in Earth’s atmosphere in October 2015.

Gray noted that 18SPCS appeared to provide updates on missile trajectories only shortly after the mission started, and then never again. That means the “conclusion” of the rocket’s burn is likely to be based on that updated forecast, he said.

Gray said he also wondered if there were other objects that got everyone excited.

“It would be very surprising if there were two objects the size of the one we’re tracking and the upper stage (of the Chinese rocket),” Gray was quoted as saying by The Verge. “So, if you’re saying this isn’t high school, then You have a lot of evidence to deal with at this point.”

Complete News Source : Free Press