Nasa says Beijing did not share info as Chines rocket falls to earth

A Chinese rocket fell back to Earth on Saturday over the Indian Ocean but NASA said Beijing had not shared the "specific trajectory information" needed to know where possible debris might fall. US Space Command said the Long March 5B rocket re-entered the Indian Ocean on Saturday. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that all spacefaring nations should follow established best practices and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk. He said doing so is critical to the responsible use of space and to ensuring the safety of people on Earth. Aerospace Corp, a government-funded nonprofit research center near Los Angeles, said it was reckless to allow the rocket's entire main-core stage - which weighs 22.5 tons to return to Earth in uncontrolled reentry. China said earlier this week it would closely track the debris but said it posed little risk to anyone on the ground.

25T core stage of a Long March 5B reentered #Earth's atmosphere over the #Indian Ocean, and most of the components have been burnt out during reentry#CZ5B lifted off on July 24, carrying a new module toward under-construction #Tiangong space station pic.twitter.com/ZdlIoD4ZVC

— Wᵒˡᵛᵉʳᶰᵉ Uᵖᵈᵃᵗᵉˢ (@W0lverineupdate) July 30, 2022

Last year, NASA and others accused China of being opaque after the Beijing government kept silent about the estimated debris trajectory or the reentry window of its last Long March rocket flight in May 2021.