Chinese satellite crashes in US sky (video)

Eyewitnesses shared photos and videos on social media on Sunday morning of a luminous object burning in the sky over several states in the southern United States.

Most viewers thought that the fireballs that lit up the sky were caused by meteors or meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere.

But space scientists and meteorologists confirmed that the burning object, some parts of which may have reached the Earth's surface in the states of Missouri, Mississippi, and Arkansas, was a Chinese satellite.

A Chinese Commercial Imaging Satellite, GaoJing 1-02 (SuperView-1) broke apart and reentered Earth's Atmosphere tonight over the City of New Orleans in the Southeastern United States; with it being observed by those in Southern Mississippi all the way up to Northern Missouri. pic.twitter.com/SMYIzZ0DGL

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) December 22, 2024

The satellite, a Gaojing 1-02, was launched into low orbit by China in 2016 as part of a constellation of four satellites to take images of Earth.

NASA planetary scientist Mark Fries confirmed that at least four American radar stations detected the Chinese satellite entering and breaking into small pieces.

Fries, a meteorologist, said the Chinese satellite deviated from its orbit over North America, and parts of it hit the ground in southeastern Missouri.

Jonathan McDowell, one of the most famous observers of Earth's orbit, said that the Chinese satellite stopped working two years ago, and has since begun its journey towards destruction.

This is not the first time that Chinese satellites have attracted the spotlight, as similar incidents have occurred before, whether when they returned from orbit around the Earth and burned up in the atmosphere, or even while operating in space.

One of the most famous of these incidents was the “uncontrolled return” of large parts of the Chinese Long March 5 rocket in July 2022.

Given the unexpected nature of the missile's impact, and the random nature of the distribution of fragments and debris, it was difficult to calculate where they would hit the ground.

In January 2023, local media in Hawaii reported images of laser beams coming from the sky.

Japanese sources confirmed at the time that the laser belts were emitted by a Chinese satellite, which was flying in a low orbit, and was making measurements about the spread of polluting gases in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

However, Colonel Ray LeRoux, the former commander of the US Marine Corps, doubted the Chinese account at the time, considering that there was a strong possibility that the satellite was carrying out an espionage mission under the cover of civilian scientific activities.

The summer of 2023 also witnessed another dramatic incident, when a Chinese spy balloon penetrated US airspace, before being shot down by a US Air Force F-22.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, announced that the US Air Force had shot down, in addition to the balloon, three other unidentified objects over the states of Alaska, South Carolina, and Michigan, in addition to the Yukon Territory in Canada.

US military sources believe that the mission of balloons and objects flying in low orbit is to take pictures and data, for the purpose of spying and stealing information over US territory.

Source: Alhurra America