Space & Astronomy

Out-of-control Chinese rocket almost causes UK national emergency

By T.K. Randall
February 1, 2026 ·  3 comments

Image Credit: (PD) NASA via Wikimedia Commons According to reports, the UK government had been readying its emergency alert system recently to prepare for the possibility of debris from a Chinese rocket falling over the country.

Officials had asked mobile network providers to ensure that the alert system - which flashes an emergency message on the mobile phones of those affected - was working.

The rocket - a Chinese Zhuque-3 - had launched back in early December.

Sometime after launch, its second stage - an object dubbed ZQ-3 R/B - entered an uncontrolled, decaying orbit instead of being carefully brought back down in a controlled manner.Its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere was unplanned and prompted concern regarding where it would end up, with the UK and Northern Europe being potential crash sites.

The EU's Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) agency had described it as "quite a sizable object deserving careful monitoring".

Fortunately, though, in the end, ZQ-3 R/B completely missed the UK and Europe, instead coming down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean some 1,200 miles from New Zealand.

As more and more junk ends up in Earth's orbit, however, some experts estimate a 1 in 10 chance that someone will end up being killed by falling debris within the next 10 years.

A study also found that there was a 1 in 1,000 chance of debris hitting a commercial airliner.

Source: Mail Online | Comments (3)

Tags: Rocket, China