EXTREMELY CLOSE ASTEROID FLYBY: There's no danger of a collision, but... Newly-discovered asteroid 2023 BU will make an extremely close approach to Earth this Thursday. On Jan 26th at 21:17 UTC (16:17 EST), the 5-meter-wide space rock will be just 3500 km above South America, well within our planet's belt of geosynchronous satellites. Europe's Virtual Telescope Project will live stream the flyby.
Yes, but they do have a MASSIVE rocket booster doing the heavy lifting.The Russians have been launching from this latitude for decades.