On April 28, 2021 China launched their first space module carrying astronauts into orbit. This launch of the Long March 5B was supposed to demonstrate a new way to launch astronauts into space. When rockets are launched, they are typically aimed to fall into the ocean or a massive body of water once they have served their purpose. This is so the falling debris does not cause any harm to cities, landmarks, or any protected land. Many countries have been very successful in getting rockets to hit their detach destinations, however China has not. In the past we have seen many failed attempts of this coming from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) including many spaceship parts being dropped on populated cities and other launch sites.
Because this rocket was built in a different manner to demonstrate the new way to launch astronauts into outer space, it made it harder for them to get the right trajectory and safely land the rocket stages and other debris. The design for this new rocket was very different from any other rocket that has been sent into space. According to Quartz, “Rather than using two stages, the vehicle only has a single core and four disposable boosters”. This caused many problems when it came to the detachment stage of the expedition. The main body of the rocket is abnormally large making the disposing stages different.
Soon after the rocket launched into space it entered a temporary orbit that would soon lead to one of the largest uncontrolled re-entrys at an unknown landing point (The Guardian). According to the BBC “[The rocket] originally injected into an elliptical orbit approximately 160km by 375km…[but] the Long March-5b core stage soon began to lose height.” The rocket began losing more and more height and on Tuesday, April 29 the rocket was orbiting Earth at about 27,600 km/h. It also made one orbit around Earth once every 90 mins. Because of how fast the rocket is traveling, it is impossible to predict where it will land but because Earth is about 71% water there is a likelihood that it will land in a body of water.
As the rocket got closer to Earth's atmosphere scientists began to figure out a rough idea as to where the rocket would land. On May 7, 2021 EU Space Surveillance and Tracking provided a map of possible landing locations for this rocket. The map depicts a series of lines which are the orbital paths of the rocket across a 12 hour period and it could land at any point during these orbits. When this map came out it was predicted that the rocket would re-enter Earth's atmosphere on May 8, 2021 at around 2:30 PM ET give or take 6 hours. These lines go through the bottom of North America and the top of South America. There are also some orbits in Africa and India. And there are also some in China and Australia. Most of these lines are going through the Ocean or some body of water demonstrating the high possibility of the Rocket landing in the water.
On May 8, 2021 at around 7:30 PST (2:24 GMT) the rocket landed in the Indian Ocean at point 72.47° East and 2.65° North (BBC). Luckily there have been no reports of injury. This is one of the biggest uncontrolled re-entries in years. China is pointing fingers at the US for letting the media make the re-entry of the rocket seem like a big deal. Scientists even said that there was a very small chance of the rocket hitting land, but the media made headlines like “Rocket tumbling back to Earth” and “Uncontrolled Rocket at risk of hurting innocent lives. By using words such as “uncontrolled” and “tumbling” the media made it seem like it was a giant threat. Others are criticizing China for letting this happen and for not taking responsibility for this rocket. Overall we do not know the CNSA's next steps for this rocket or how they will go about future space missions.
Discussion Questions
If you were a part of the CNSA, how would you work to improve this situation? How would you make sure that this does not happen again?
How can the media make situations seem worse than they actually are? How big of an influence does media have on people's everyday lives?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57045058
https://qz.com/1856233/a-chinese-rocket-appears-to-rain-rogue-parts-down-from-space/
https://www.eusst.eu/newsroom/eu-sst-monitors-reentry-cz5brb/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/04/out-of-control-chinese-rocket-tumbling-to-earth
The media has a history of making a situation seem more dramatic and severe to make the article seem more interesting. By mentioning how the rocket is "uncontrolled", a sense of risk and fear is created, and on the front page of a news headline, that ends up looking a lot more appealing. Media has quite a big influence today, as everyone is exposed to the media in some way as long as they use the internet. The people of the world also have social media and various other methods to share information, and all this ease of access and sharing makes the influence of media very huge.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with what you are saying, the way writers write what they write influence what people find appealing. Like what you said when the rocket was said "uncontrolled" which risked the sense of fear and it really benefited the writer since more people would read it.
DeleteThe media has always made some situations really big when they aren't or are. I think that the more well written and impactful the story is for the media the more it will benefit the publisher or company. The media is a big influence in everyone and people will believe what is in the media since they don't know where else to get information.
ReplyDeleteThe media makes the situation worse by naming their titles and describing the situation in the worst way possible, or specifically in a way that focuses on getting attention rather than informing people truthfully. While the media seems as if it has little to no influence in peoples day-to-day lives, overtime it changes an individual's way of thinking, as they continue to listen to the same sources. This is evident in today's society through the development of the Republican and Democratic parties, where there is separate media -through FOX News & etc. as well as CNN & etc.- geared towards separate followers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Angelo, especially in a time of so much new information being available to almost the entire world. The media doesn't have a huge influence on non-lawmaker's lives but lawmakers do almost control the media and what they say. As CNSA, I would probably make the rocket a three stage rocket because the parts wouldn't be as big or damaging if they fell. Three stage rockets have proven that they are effective (most common type).
DeleteIn this case the media did make the sitatuion worse and probably caused a panic amongst a good amount of people. But I think this is a common theme in the media because they use interesting words and titles to get people intresed in reading. If they used "rocket coming back to earth but likely to hit a body of water", nobody would read the rest of the article because that is all they needed to know.
ReplyDeleteIf I were a part of the CNSA, I would improve this situation by putting more resources toward solving/modelling the detach trajectory. It is irresponsible to “hope” that the the detached stages will not hit land and cause damage just because the Earth is over 70% water. There is still a 30% chance that the detached stages can fall on land. To make sure that this does not happen again, I would make sure that no more launches are conducted with this same type of rocket until the detach trajectories can be properly modelled. Until this problem can be solved, the CNSA should only launch previous, proven rocket technologies. -Evan Louie
ReplyDeleteIf I were apart of the CNSA, I would make sure I set more resources to molding the detach trajectory. I think that it is dangerous to think that it will not hit land and I think it is irresponsible. It makes it extremely unsafe and the likeliness of it hitting land is still about 30%. I think it is important they improve the detach trajectory.
ReplyDeleteThe media has a large impact on society as it is involved in our daily lives. Many people tend to follow what they see on the media especially if the sources are known for being reliable and genuine. However, when something like this rocket launch is fasley described, it can create panic and lead to more harm than good. The media has an impact on the dynamic of our society. When certain words used in headlines exaggerate the situation more than needed, there will be a reaction from the concerned citizens which creates more panic than necessary.
ReplyDeleteThe media often makes situations seem worse than they actually are so that they garner as much interest as possible. Instead of putting out entirely truthful, or as much as they actually know, the media will instead try to evoke emotions like fear and anxiety in its audience to again, try to grab more attention. As for the role of the media in people's lives, I think that the influence of the media is pretty large, considering that it is how we stay up to date on events.
ReplyDeleteThe media can make things worse than they actually are by inflating statistics and information to make something seem much worse. They also can leave out crucial bits of information to make the story seem much more dramatic. They oftentimes also fail to speak on the topic through the opposing views perspective which always results in people thinking there is a clear good guy and bad guy when there isn't. This kind of thinking usually escalates the situation that was presented by the media and only makes things worse.
ReplyDeleteThe media can put the world in a whole new perspective. People could get the wrong idea out of rumors and certain things that they see in the media. The influence of the media is pretty big, considering that it is how we stay up to do on all events and trends throughout the world today. Some people that post on social media often leave out important pieces of evidence which can quickly turn something good into something bad in a matter of seconds.
ReplyDeleteThe media has a huge influence on the knowledge input into our lives. This occurs all the time and people are often misguided and ill-informed because of the media's illusions. Many authors forget to include key evidence to support their narrative.
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