{"id":89707,"date":"2025-10-20T09:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/89707\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T09:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:21:09","slug":"space-debris-found-on-fire-near-wa-mining-town-suspected-to-be-from-chinese-rocket-western-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/89707\/","title":{"rendered":"Space debris found on fire near WA mining town suspected to be from Chinese rocket | Western Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Burning space debris that crashed to Earth in outback Australia is likely part of a Chinese rocket that launched in September, according to leading space archaeologist Alice Gorman.<\/p>\n

Authorities are investigating the hunk of metal and carbon fibre after miners spotted it near Newman, Western Australia<\/a> on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to be the fourth stage of a Jielong rocket,\u201d Gorman, a Flinders University associate professor and author of Dr Space<\/a> Junk vs the Universe, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was one launched in late September. If it is the one from the 25th, that means it\u2019s been orbiting the Earth for a bit and then came out of the blue.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no indication it was going to re-enter right now so people weren\u2019t expecting it \u2013 when I went to look for re-entry predictions I couldn\u2019t find anything, which is an indication of the suddenness of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

WA police are leading the investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitial assessments indicate the item was made of carbon fibre and may be a composite over-wrapped pressure vessel or rocket tank, consistent with aerospace components,\u201d a police spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe object remains under investigation, though its characteristics are consistent with known space re-entry debris \u2026 further technical assessment will be undertaken by engineers from the Australian Space Agency to assist in identifying its nature and source.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mine site personnel found the burning object near a remote access road and called emergency services about 2pm, police said.<\/p>\n

Police, the Australian Space Agency, the WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services and the mine operators are all involved in the investigation.<\/p>\n

The director general of the European Space Agency (Esa), Dr Josef Aschbacher, was in Australia recently for the International Astronautical Congress. He told Guardian Australia that space junk was becoming more of an issue in orbit and in terms of it de-orbiting and hitting land as increasing numbers of rockets are launched.<\/p>\n

Initial assessments indicate the item was made of carbon fibre, police said, and may be a composite-overwrapped pressure vessel or rocket tank, consistent with aerospace components. Photograph: Western Australia Police Force<\/p>\n

The Esa has created a zero debris charter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe signatories to this charter promise or commit themselves to take the spacecraft out of the orbit at the end of their life,\u201d he said. \u201cThis requires some technical changes or modifications.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, you need to have enough fuel to de-orbit \u2026 secondly, the spacecraft needs to be designed in a way that it breaks up in small enough pieces that are then burning up in the atmosphere and are not reaching the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gorman said everyone launching rockets should have an \u201cend-of-life plan\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might be controlled [re-entries] \u2026 where they are directed to Point Nemo, the spacecraft graveyard<\/a>,\u201d she said, which might cause environmental concerns but protected property and people.<\/p>\n

Uncontrolled entries should be designed to burn up, she said, but fuel tanks are often made of stainless steel or titanium alloys, along with carbon fibre overlays, which give them a really high melting point.<\/p>\n

She said it was common now for debris to land, but not so common for it to be found still burning \u2013 usually it would land far from human eyes.<\/p>\n

Transport safety officials ruled out the item being from a commercial aircraft, saying it was more likely to be re-entering space debris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Burning space debris that crashed to Earth in outback Australia is likely part of a Chinese rocket that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-89707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}