BEIJING: Debris from the recently launched Long March-7 Y9 carrier rocket fell back to Earth late on Sunday night, with the vast majority of the remnants burning up during the reentry process, the China Manned Space Agency said on Monday.
The reentry took place around 9:49 p.m. (Beijing time), the agency said in a brief statement, noting that debris from the second stage of the rocket eventually landed in Atlantic Ocean waters located at a latitude of 28.3 degrees north and a longitude of 52.9 degrees west, Xinhua news agency reported.
Carrying the Tianzhou-8 cargo craft to deliver fresh supplies to China's space station, the rocket lifted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan on November 15.
Long March-7 is China's new-generation medium-lift launch vehicle. It has a low Earth orbit payload capacity of 14 tonnes and can meet the requirements for sending cargo craft into orbit to dock with the orbiting space station.
Meanwhile, China on Monday also launched a Long March-2C carrier rocket, placing two satellites into space, Xinhua reported.
The rocket blasted off at 7:39 a.m. (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China and sent the pair of satellites, Siwei Gaojing-2 03 and Siwei Gaojing-2 04, into the preset orbit.
It was the 547th flight mission of the Long March series of rockets.
Developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, Siwei Gaojing-2 03 and Siwei Gaojing-2 04 are commercial microwave mapping satellites owned by China Siwei Surveying and Mapping Technology Co., Ltd.
According to the developer, the Siwei satellites are equipped with high-precision radar payloads, providing the world with advanced all-day, all-weather, and high-resolution radar images.
They will join previously launched optical satellites to form a network in orbit, further enhancing the capabilities of optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) integrated services.
SAR uses radio waves to produce high-resolution images rather than using the light from the sun as optical images.
In addition, the academy noted that the utilisation of new technologies in the two new satellites would enhance payload efficiency by 25 per cent and greatly improve the precision of surveying and mapping products, meeting China's robust demands for commercial surveying and mapping data.
Once operational, the two satellites can quickly determine the scope of disasters regardless of weather conditions, enabling early warning and identification of floods and geological disasters. This makes them "the first line of defense for disaster prevention and reduction, " the academy said.