WENCHANG, CHINA - JULY 24: A Long March-5B Y3 rocket carrying China's space station lab module ... [+] Wentian blasts off from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on July 24, 2022 in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

China’s latest space mission was a success, sending the new Wentian lab module to its Tiangong space station, but the Long March 5B rocket booster (also referred to as a CZ-5B) that sent it to orbit is set to make an impact of its own... literally.

The CZ-5B is the Chinese space program’s most powerful rocket, but it seems to have a rather significant design oversight: it lacks the capability to negotiate a controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Instead, the 23-ton, 10-story rocket spends a little while circling the Earth as our planet’s gravity gradually pulls it back towards a completely unplanned and uncontrolled re-entry.

It was clear almost immediately after Wentian was deployed that a CZ-5B would be going out in a ball of fire eventually. And now we have a rough idea of when.

The Aerospace Corporation, which tracks re-entries of rockets, spacecraft and other orbital objects, has now issued its projection for when the booster will lose enough altitude in its orbit to re-enter our atmosphere.

“It is still too early to determine a meaningful debris footprint,” the company tweeted Tuesday.

But it places the window of re-entry roughly between early Saturday morning, and late Sunday evening, Pacific Time.

Statistically, the rocket is most likely to fall in the ocean or some remote area on land, but its flight path also takes it over some of the most populated cities in the world, including New York and Los Angeles.

If you’re more than 41.5 degrees north or south of the equator, you should be safe. Rest easy, London.

The first two CZ-5B launches also led to uncontrolled re-entries, with one dropping debris on the western coast of Africa in 2020 and another falling in the ocean in 2021.

Once the rocket begins its descent through our atmosphere, most of it will burn up due to the intense friction. But a few tons could make it all the way to the surface, likely in numerous pieces strewn across a very wide debris field covering many miles.

Space junk watchers like Aerospace Corporation, LeoLabs and astronomer Jonathan McDowell will be tracking the re-entry and are good sources for updates up to the point of re-entry.