Falling fireball likely linked to China's test launch

The Offices of Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defense (GHS/OCD) and the Mariana Regional Fusion Center continue to monitor events in the region, including widely circulated videos of a fiery object over the Marianas sky Thursday evening. In concert with federal partners, GHS/OCD and MRFC identified that the object was likely connected to a scheduled satellite test launch from China.

Open sources report that a Chinese Long March 3B rocket was scheduled to launch the Palapa N1 communications satellite, also known as Nusantara Satu 2, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China on April 9 at 7:40 a.m. EDT.

This scheduled commercial space launch occurred around 9:40 p.m. ChST and corresponds with the timing of the widely circulated videos of the fiery object in the sky.

There was no direct threat assessed to the Marianas from the launch.