China’s out-of-control 8.5-tonne 天宫一号 (Tiāngōng-1) – literally “Heavenly Palace” – space station re-entered Earth’s atmosphere Monday morning, landing in the middle of the South Pacific, China Manned Space Agency said in a statement cited by 新华社 (Xīnhuá News Agency).
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A radar image of 天宫一号 (Tiāngōng-1), the Chinese space station that re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Monday. Credit: Fraunhofer Institute via AP.
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China’s out-of-control 8.5-tonne 天宫一号 (Tiāngōng-1) – literally “Heavenly Palace” – space station will crash to Earth this weekend, sometime between Saturday night and Sunday evening.
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China’s first prototype space station, 天宫一号 (Tiāngōng-1), or “Heavenly Palace”, launched into orbit in September 2011, got totally out of control and, although it will mostly burn up in the atmostphere, there’s a chance that a “significant” portion will fall to Earth. Officials of 国家航天局 (China National Space Administration) admitted that they have lost control of the station, and that it is moving too fast to accurately predict where debris from the 8.5-tonne module will crash. Photo: Shutterstock/Rex.
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