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Recently on April 29 2021, Chinese space program launched Tianhe as part of Tiangong space station. In launch section it states the mission was failure:

Tianhe launched on 29 April 2021, at 03:23:15 UTC atop a Long March 5B launch vehicle from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site. After the core module was put into orbit, the launch vehicle entered a temporary, uncontrolled failing orbit.

But in List of mission, it is declared a success.

Fred
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B. Shearer
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  • You are misreading. It was the launch vehicle that went into an uncontrolled orbit that will eventually reenter. That does not mean the mission was a failure. The mission apparently went exactly as planned, with the payload (Tianhe) successfully placed into the designed orbit. China has made a calculated bet that the uncontrolled reentry of the launch vehicle (which is no longer needed for mission success) won't result in significant damage. It's a somewhat reasonable bet as most of the Earth's surface is ocean, and most of the Earth's land area is sparsely populated. – David Hammen May 05 '21 at 16:52

1 Answers1

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You've answered your question yourself.

The launch placed the space station's core module into orbit. Hence it was a success. However, the vehicle consisted of more than just the core module. The Long March 5 rocket consists of several stages, the last one of which (the "launch vehicle") was left in an orbit that would bring it back to earth in an uncontrolled manner.

hdhondt
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    Which, unfortunately, seems to be just how the CZ-5B is designed, given that the last one also reentered uncontrolled. So, not only does this launch seem to be successful, it also seems to be nominal. – Jörg W Mittag May 04 '21 at 17:54