Debris from a rocket launched by China’s space program Collapsed in a village in southwest China on Saturday. Footage of the orange beam appearing on social networks was so shocking that the government banned locals from continuing to record the recovery process, CNN reported. And before you can ask, the orange smoke is a toxic combination of nitrogen tetroxide and asymmetric dimethylhydrazine.
Video shows the first booster stage of the Long March 2C rocket falling into a rural area. The rocket was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, carrying the Space Variable Object Monitor X-ray telescope into orbit. The first stage crash site was in Xianqiao, Guizhou, China, approximately 400 miles southeast of the launch site. Missile expert Markus Schiller told CNN:
“If you want to launch something into low Earth orbit, you usually launch it eastward to get more thrust from the Earth’s rotation. But if you launch east, there will always be some villages in the path of the first stage booster.”
Other space programs have launch facilities in coastal areas, so there’s nothing low-altitude except the open ocean. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and SpaceX Starbase in South Texas located on the Gulf Coast. However, China has always built launch sites inland to protect against observation and attack.
China did not leave rocket debris hindering the progress of the previously ambitious space program. The program is in the process of expanding Thien Cung space station. Not to mention, China and Russia also agreed to cooperate in construction another station in lunar orbit to compete with the Artemis program’s Gateway station.
