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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday September 25 2016, @11:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-goes-up... dept.

China confirmed in a press conference, that Tiangong-1, their first space station put into orbit in 2011, will re-enter and burn up in the atmosphere sometime in late 2017. There seems to be some uncertainty in when it will re-enter the atmosphere, which leads one to believe that the station is not under orbital control and that it will come back to Earth in the same manner that Skylab did in 1979.


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  • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Sunday September 25 2016, @02:46PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Sunday September 25 2016, @02:46PM (#406268)

    GO KERBALS!

    Nothing wrong with what you said. The object will heat up and start tumbling. The combination of heat and g-forces from the tumbling it will be doing will cause all but the largest and most solid components to break up into small pieces. There might be a few chunks left that could be hazardous if they fell on anyone but good old probability dictates that those will end up falling in the ocean or on empty land. While there are more people and cities than there were in the 1970's when Skylab came down it's still not THAT crowded yet. This is pretty much a non issue but the uncertainty and fear sells news articles and generates hits.

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