Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-goes-up dept.

The out-of-control Chinese space station is now predicted to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere sometime around the beginning of April. Most of it will burn up on the way down, but it's possible some pieces of the 9-ton spacecraft could make it to the surface.

Tiangong means "Heavenly Palace" in English and Tiangong-1 was China's first space station, launched in 2011. The original plan for the craft's demise was a controlled re-entry that would allow it to burn up over an unpopulated section of the South Pacific, with any surviving fragments falling in the sea. 

But as early as March 2016, reports began to suggest that Tiangong-1 was malfunctioning and ground crews had lost control of the craft. In other words, there appears to be little chance of performing the maneuvers to steer it to a graceful breakup over the ocean. Instead, it's all up to chance.

According to a new projection from the European Space Agency on Tuesday, the space station is expected to make a likely uncontrolled re-entry roughly between March 29 and April 9. The ESA stresses that it won't be possible to make a precise prediction about exactly when or where Tiangong-1 will burn up and how much of it will get all the way through the atmosphere to the surface. 

That said, the Chinese space station is fairly easy to track and ESA says in an online FAQ that we should know about a day in advance of the craft's end which regions of the planet might be able to see it actually burning up in the sky. Predicting where any impact might occur is significantly more difficult, however. 

"Even 7 hours before the actual re-entry, the uncertainty on the break-up location is a full orbital revolution -- meaning plus or minus thousands of kilometers," writes ESA's Daniel Scuka.

Tiangong-1's orbit spans from 43 degrees north to 43 degrees south, or from the central United States down to the southern tip of Australia, according to Jay Melosh, a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University. He explains that it could come down anywhere between the two points but is more likely to land at either extreme because the station spends more time there.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday March 10 2018, @09:35PM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Saturday March 10 2018, @09:35PM (#650649) Homepage Journal

    Don't worry, folks, China will pay for this. Because I proclaimed TARIFFS on solar panels from China. On aluminum from China. And on steel from China.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2