After months of suspicion, China has finally confirmed their first space station is heading for Earth and is potentially out of control. A senior official of the Chinese space program revealed at a press conference last week that the Tiangong-1 space station is likely to fall to Earth by 2017, Xinhua News Agencyreports. They added it's currently intact and orbiting at a height of around 370 kilometers (230 miles). "Based on our calculation and analysis, most parts of the space lab will burn up during falling," said Wu Ping, deputy director of China's manned space engineering office, during the press conference. The officials said that the space agency will continue to follow the movement of Tiangong-1 and will release an update on its expected time of arrival if required. The 10.3-meter-long (34-foot-long) Tiangong-1, which means “Heavenly Palace," was launched in 2011 as China’s first manned space station. It ended its mission in March this year. However, since then, numerous astronomersnoted the space station appeared to be aimlessly drifting out of control and heading for Earth. The silence by the Chinese government only heightened uncertainties. The officials did not comment on how much of the space station they still maintain. However, given the vague estimated landing time, it suggests very little. China launched a new experimental space station, Tiangong-2, last week, and are planning to launch a fully fledged space station next decade. onathan McDowell, renowned Harvard astrophysicist and space industry enthusiast, said the announcement suggested China had lost control of the station and that it would re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere “naturally.” If this is the case, it would be impossible to predict where the debris from the space station will land. “You really can’t steer these things,” he said. “Even a couple of days before it re-enters we probably won’t know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it’s going to come down. Not knowing when it’s going to come down translates as not knowing where its going to come down.” McDowell said a slight change in atmospheric conditions could nudge the landing site “from one continent to the next”. While most of the eight tonnes of space station would melt as it passes through the atmosphere, McDowell said some parts, such as the rocket engines, were so dense that they wouldn’t burn up completely. “There will be lumps of about 100kg or so, still enough to give you a nasty wallop if it hit you,” he said. “Yes there’s a chance it will do damage, it might take out someone’s car, there will be a rain of a few pieces of metal, it might go through someone’s roof, like if a flap fell off a plane, but it is not widespread damage.” Wu Ping, the space official, told reporters the lab – which was launched into spaceamid great fanfare in September 2011 – had made “important contributions to China’s manned space cause” during its four and a half years of service.
She claimed its return to earth was “unlikely to affect aviation activities or cause damage to the ground”. “China has always highly valued the management of space debris, conducting research and tests on space debris mitigation and cleaning,” Wu said, according to Xinhua. Wu said Tiangong-1 was “currently intact” and that authorities would “continue to monitor [it] and strengthen early warning for possible collision with objects.” “If necessary, China will release a forecast of its falling and report it internationally,” she added. Space enthusiasts who have been monitoring Tiangong-1, and attempting to draw attention to its plight, fear there is a risk – albeit small – that pieces of the falling lab could cause damage back on earth. “It could be a real bad day if pieces of this came down in a populated area,” Thomas Dorman, an amateur astronomer who has been attempting to track the missing lab, was quoted as saying by the space.com website in June. China’s first space lab was most likely to land in the ocean or in an uninhabited area, Dorman admitted. “But remember – sometimes, the odds just do not work out, so this may bear watching.” |
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January 2017
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