Chinese space debris could disrupt holiday flights to Spain and Portugal this weekend

Marlon Sorge, a space debris expert, said he expected around “five to nine metric tonnes” to survive”.

Last year, debris from a rocket landed in the Indian Ocean, while in 2018 debris damaged buildings in Ivory Coast.

Michael Bayers, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia, found that developing countries are disproportionately at risk from falling space debris.

According to NASA, more than 27,000 pieces of space junk are currently being tracked by the Department of Defence’s global Space Surveillance Network.