ROCKET DEBRIS DUE TODAY

SHANGHAI: Remnants of China’s largest rocket launched last week were expected to plunge back through the atmosphere late yesterday or early this morning, a US federally funded space-focused research and development centre said.

China’s foreign ministry said on Friday that most debris from the rocket will be burned up on re-entry and is highly unlikely to cause any harm, after the US military said that what it called an uncontrolled re-entry was being tracked by US Space Command.

CORDS’ latest “informed prediction” of the rocket body’s re-entry location was given near the North Island of New Zealand, but it noted that re-entry was possible anywhere along paths covering large swathes of the globe.