China needs to 'fundamentally redesign their rockets'

When a rocket booster crashes from orbit it is typically the fault of the nation who launched it but most space organisations no longer launch boosters into space as they cannot be controlled, says ANU cosmologist and astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker.

“There is laws that say it’s essentially the country that puts it up that’s responsible and it is China’s fault and a lot of groups already don’t do this,” he told Sky News.

“What these rocket boosters actually do and we see this with SpaceX is that they don’t go all the way into space, they do most of the heavy lifting and then splash out in the ocean.”

Dr Tucker said when this happens a “smaller bit goes outside of Earth’s atmosphere” burns out and China should be urged to follow this or change their design.

“They need to change their design and there needs to be more pressure and the US and Russia and other groups and saying ‘look you can’t keep doing this’.”

Dr Tucker said this is not the first time China has sent up an uncontrollable rocket booster into space to burn out as a previous one crashed on the Ivory Coast in Africa.

“They’re planning on launching more of these rockets up and taking other parts of their space station so this isn’t going to be a one-off because they just need to fundamentally redesign their rocket and ultimately that has to come from the international community.”

Видео China needs to 'fundamentally redesign their rockets' канала Sky News Australia