Rocket debris hitting US homeland is ‘embarrassing’ for China, says astronomer

A scorched hunk of metal that turned up in a US farmer’s cornfield may have handed China an awkward moment and technically an “international incident”, according to a British astronomer who has tracked rocket launches for more than 30 years.

The farmer found the bowl-shaped object, measuring about 3.35 metres (11 feet) across, while harvesting corn in west-central Minnesota on October 14. Online, some residents joked that aliens had landed, while Chinese internet users said it looked like a giant hotpot.

However, space observers said it most likely came from a Chinese rocket launched on September 15.

The dome appears to be the blackened end cap of a fuel tank, and it is exactly as wide as the Zhuque-2E rocket built by Beijing-based LandSpace, which had declared the mission a success.

Shortly after lift-off, residents of Kansas and Minnesota posted videos of fiery debris streaking across the sky.

“It’s embarrassing for China,” Jonathan McDowell, a former Harvard astrophysicist based near London, said on Thursday. “This sort of thing should not happen.”

Rocket makers usually steer returning projectiles towards remote ocean, so that any fragments that survive the plunge through the atmosphere after re-entry land safely in the water.

The LandSpace rocket released 10 satellites for China’s Qianfan internet network – similar to SpaceX’s Starlink – before firing its engine again as it began its descent back to Earth.

McDowell said he suspected the engine was a bit stronger than expected and fired a little too long. Instead of dropping into a lower orbit and circling Earth for a few days before falling, as LandSpace probably planned, the rocket part came straight down, he said.

“It seems very unlikely that they would have targeted America,” he added, while pointing out that it was not unusual for such a sizeable fragment to survive the trip down.

Large, thin parts such as the ends of fuel tanks slow down quickly high in the atmosphere, before they get hot enough to burn away. In 1997, a 250kg (550lbs) steel fuel tank from a US Delta II rocket landed nearly intact in Texas.

Stevens county sheriff Jason Dingman said he could not yet answer questions about the object, including its location, but expected more details to be released soon.

LandSpace did not respond to a request to confirm whether the object found in the cornfield came from its rocket or if US authorities had contacted the company.

The Minnesota debris is the latest in a string of problems for the Zhuque-2E. On the rocket’s previous flight in June, its upper stage broke apart in orbit, leaving dozens of fragments, US media reported.

“Restarting rocket engines in orbit is always hard,” McDowell said. “But it’s been done for a long time, and it’s meant to be a solved problem. Clearly, they’ve got some wrinkles to iron out.”

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The debris could also make the cornfield a matter of international law between Washington and Beijing, he said. The 1972 UN Space Liability Convention holds the country that launches a space object fully liable for any damage it causes on the ground.

LandSpace needed the Chinese government’s permission to launch and in return Beijing took responsibility for the rocket, McDowell said. “It’s always about the country. It all has to go through country to country. So it’s automatically an international incident.”

McDowell explained that if the farmer’s land was damaged, he would have to complain to the US government, which would then be responsible for taking the claim to Beijing, which could then settle the matter with LandSpace.

Such cases were rare, so the rules had not been well tested, he said, adding that while any single falling rocket part was unlikely to hurt someone, the odds increased as more came down.

“We really need to stop doing this, because eventually someone will get hurt.”

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