Old SpaceX Clip Shared As Chinese Rocket Falling Into Indian Ocean

The video shows SpaceX’s Starship SN9’s high-altitude test flight which exploded after landing in February.

A video on social media which shows people watching a rocket crashing down is being shared with the false claim that it shows a Chinese satellite falling into the Indian Ocean.

While the remains of a Chinese rocket reportedly landed in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, 9 May, the viral video could be traced back to February.

It shows the Starship SN9 prototype, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, exploding upon landing after a high altitude test flight.

CLAIM

Many social media users shared the clip with the claim that it was the Chinese rocket that had crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Multiple variations of the same claim were seen across Facebook and the archived version of the posts can be viewed here, here and here.

The Quint received a query on the claim being made in the video on its WhatsApp tipline as well.

WHAT WE FOUND

We divided the video into multiple keyframes using Chrome extension InVID and conducted a reverse image search on them.

This led us to a YouTube video uploaded by channel Infinite Space on 4 February. The YouTube video was a longer version of the viral one and the caption along with it read: 'SpaceX Starship SN9 Launch, Landing, Explosion & Viewer Reactions!.’

Using ‘SpaceX SN9 explosion’ as keywords, we found a CNBC news report that mentioned that SpaceX’s prototype was launched successfully, however, it exploded while attempting to land after a development test flight.

The search results also led us to a LIVE footage uploaded on SpaceX’s YouTube handle on 3 February that showed the sequence of events that took place during the test flight.

On carefully examining the viral video and the one uploaded by SpaceX, we found several similarities between the two.

For instance, the placement of elements in both the visuals is the same.

Further, we also noticed the sequence of events in both the visuals is the same and can be watched from 11:50 minutes down the SpaceX footage.

WHAT ABOUT THE CHINESE ROCKET?

As per a Reuters report published on Sunday, 9 May, remains of China's biggest rocket landed in the Indian Ocean and most of its elements were destroyed as they re-entered the atmosphere.

The rocket, Long March-5B Y2, was carrying a core module of Tianhe, China’s new space station and was launched on 29 April this year. There was global speculation on where the debris would fall after its uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Clearly, the viral video is being shared with a false claim that it shows the debris of the Chinese rocket falling into the Indian Ocean.

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