China’s defunct and reportedly out-of-control Tiangong 1 space station is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere sometime this weekend. It poses only a slight risk to people and property on the ground, since most of the bus-size, 8.5-tonne vehicle is expected to burn up on re-entry, although space agencies don’t know exactly when or where that will happen.
The European Space Agency predicts the station will re-enter the atmosphere between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon an estimate it calls “highly variable,” likely because the ever-changing shape of the upper atmosphere affects the speed of objects falling into it. The Chinese space agency’s latest estimate puts re-entry between Saturday and Wednesday.
Western space experts say they believe China has lost control of the station. China’s chief space laboratory designer Zhu Zongpeng has denied Tiangong was out of control, but hasn’t provided specifics on what, if anything, China is doing to guide the craft’s re-entry.
Place of landing
Based on Tiangong 1’s orbit, it will come to the earth somewhere between latitudes of 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, or roughly somewhere over most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America. Out of range are Russia, Canada and northern Europe.
Based on its size, only about 10% of the spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines. The chances of anyone person on the earth being hit by debris is considered less than one in a trillion.
Other fiery endings
Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.
Most famously, America’s 77-tonne Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwestern Australia city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.
The breakup on re-entry of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003 killed all seven astronauts and sent more than 80,000 pieces of debris raining down on a large swathe of the southern United States. No one on the ground was injured.
In 2011, NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was considered to pose a slight risk to the public when it came down to the earth 20 years after its launching. Debris from the 6-tonne satellite ended up falling into the Pacific Ocean, causing no damage.
China’s own space program raised major concerns after it used a missile to destroy an out-of-service Chinese satellite in 2007, creating a large and potentially dangerous cloud of debris.
Launched in 2011, Tiangong 1 was China’s first space station, serving as an experimental platform for bigger projects such as the Tiangong 2 launched in September 2016 and a future permanent Chinese space station....read more
The European Space Agency predicts the station will re-enter the atmosphere between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon an estimate it calls “highly variable,” likely because the ever-changing shape of the upper atmosphere affects the speed of objects falling into it. The Chinese space agency’s latest estimate puts re-entry between Saturday and Wednesday.
Western space experts say they believe China has lost control of the station. China’s chief space laboratory designer Zhu Zongpeng has denied Tiangong was out of control, but hasn’t provided specifics on what, if anything, China is doing to guide the craft’s re-entry.
Place of landing
Based on Tiangong 1’s orbit, it will come to the earth somewhere between latitudes of 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, or roughly somewhere over most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America. Out of range are Russia, Canada and northern Europe.
Based on its size, only about 10% of the spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines. The chances of anyone person on the earth being hit by debris is considered less than one in a trillion.
Other fiery endings
Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.
Most famously, America’s 77-tonne Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwestern Australia city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.
The breakup on re-entry of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003 killed all seven astronauts and sent more than 80,000 pieces of debris raining down on a large swathe of the southern United States. No one on the ground was injured.
In 2011, NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was considered to pose a slight risk to the public when it came down to the earth 20 years after its launching. Debris from the 6-tonne satellite ended up falling into the Pacific Ocean, causing no damage.
China’s own space program raised major concerns after it used a missile to destroy an out-of-service Chinese satellite in 2007, creating a large and potentially dangerous cloud of debris.
Launched in 2011, Tiangong 1 was China’s first space station, serving as an experimental platform for bigger projects such as the Tiangong 2 launched in September 2016 and a future permanent Chinese space station....read more
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