Ars Technica<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\nNow, this particular object has been getting a ton of attention, since Gray first predicted in January that the deep-space object would collide with the Moon on March 4th. But after taking a closer look at the object\u2019s history and getting some new details from NASA, Gray is fairly convinced that this object is a leftover piece of a Chinese rocket, specifically a Long March 3C that launched China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 5-T1 mission to the Moon. That flight was a precursor mission that sent a capsule looping around the Moon and careening back to Earth, to test out technology China would use to bring samples of lunar dirt back to our planet.<\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/source><\/picture>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
China\u2019s Long March 3C launching in 2010. Part of the same rocket is thought to be on a collision course with the Moon.<\/figcaption>Image: STR\/AFP via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Gray says he realized the case of mistaken identity when he got an email from someone at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who keeps track of active space missions. JPL has its own tracking system, and the JPL employee argued that it was unlikely that the Falcon 9 would have passed close by the Moon two days after the DSCOVR launch. \u201cHe happened to think, \u2018Wait a minute. I don\u2019t remember that having gone past the Moon,\u2019\u201d Gray tells The Verge<\/em>. \u201cThat caused him to dig into the historical data of where DSCOVR actually went.\u201d Based on that mission\u2019s trajectory, the Falcon 9 would have been in another part of space entirely when this object skimmed the Moon.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI think we can say that we have a very solid chain of evidence for it.\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\nSo Gray went back in time to see if there were any other launches that could fit the bill for this object. That\u2019s when he found the Chang\u2019e 5-T1 mission, which launched in October of 2014. After reconstructing the probable orbit and trajectory for the mission, he realized that the Long March 3C rocket that launched the mission is now the best fit for this mystery object.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can say that we have a very solid chain of evidence for it,\u201d Gray says. \u201cRunning the orbit back to launch for the Chinese spacecraft makes ample sense. It winds up with an orbit that goes past the Moon at the right time after launch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the confusion about the object\u2019s identity, Gray says this is just further proof that we need more information about these rocket boosters that go to deep space. As Gray argues, some people\u2019s general attitude toward these kinds of objects is that we don\u2019t need to pay attention to them once they are in space, since they are so far out in orbit. As of now, no formal entity is consistently tracking leftover rockets like this that go into deep space trajectories. \u201cThe only folks that I know of who pay attention to these old rocket boosters are the asteroid tracking community,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Gray says it would be better if those who launch deep space rockets had to report the last known location of their vehicles, to make it easier to track and identify the lost parts. Of course, China is notorious for releasing very little information about its space missions. \u201cThis sort of thing would be considerably easier if the folks who launch spacecraft \u2014 if there was some regulatory environment where they had to report something,\u201d Gray says. \u201cBut as it stands, it\u2019s always a certain amount of detective work that goes into figuring these things out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/2\/13\/22931817\/china-change-5-t1-rocket-spacex-falcon-9-moon-collision<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: Last month, an astronomer and space tracking expert made a bit of a splash when he predicted that a piece of an old SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket left in space for the last seven years was going to collide with the Moon this March. But now he\u2019s changing that prediction in a big way. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,33,36],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-space","category-spacex","tag-spacex"],"yoast_head":"\n
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