Cosmic Penguin

...it's a headache to read Chinese sites reporting on this right now as it's almost universal consent that this is yet another "Western opinion attack on China" incident when the US et al. also drop rocket stages overhead. Which there might be a tiny bit of truth but...

...just an example, on the one Chinese spaceflight forum I frequent there are lots of names being mocked for (to quote a usual PRC official statement) "spilling dirty water", from Bill Nelson, @planet4589, @AJ_FI to "the whole @NASASpaceflight community". (different members)

(and of course this stance is actually supported officially, like today's opinion from PRC's Global Times, so uh....)

Back on the implication for future LM-5B launches, I've read genuine discussions there and it looks like there's no easy way to mitigate this alas. This one's as good as it could be but I'm not sure the S/Cs have that extra capability.https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1391620838240227330 …

Dropping the core stage in the STS ET way would have it burning up over S Europe-Middle East. Going w/ a trim stage a la Ariane 5 ES might cause the core stage to drop over Australia (unless the burn time can be very fine controlled).

As for active de-orbit using RCS/extra SRMs the initial track of 42 deg. from Wenchang would require coasting for 1-3 hours before hitting large piece of ocean; I'm not sure the Chinese have that long coasting ability for such a large stage.

So it looks like this problem will persist for at least another 3 times (2 CSS modules + its tendered all-sky survey telescope). Maybe by then a new variant of their next-generation crew LV can replace it, but its 2nd stage is just as large so...