Spain briefly declared an official 'no-fly' zone in the region of Catalonia over fear of the risks posed by the uncontrolled fall of part of the rocket used to deliver China’s Tiangong space station.
Barcelona and Ibiza airports were among those impacted by the grounding, which lasted around 40 minutes on Friday.
The EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EUSST) operations centres, said the core stage of the rocket was about 30 metres long and weighed between 17 and 23 tonnes, making it “one of the largest pieces of debris re-entering in the near past”.
The rocket blasted off on October 31 2022 from southern China to deliver the last module of the country's space station, which is currently under construction. As gravity pulled the projectile back to Earth, most of it was expected to burn up on re-entry, but there were concerns significant fragments may survive.
The European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking service had said on its website...