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posted by martyb on Thursday July 14 2016, @06:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the duck! dept.

Space.com reports (Tor-friendly link) that amateur satellite tracker Thomas Dorman has created imagery that suggests China's Tiangong-1 space station "is in a slow roll." If that is the situation, its motion is not under control and its solar panels are not aimed at the Sun.

In March, official news agency Xinhua reported that "Tiangong-1 terminated its data service" and that

The flight orbit of the space lab, which will descend gradually in the coming months, is under continued and close monitoring, according to the [manned space engineering] office, which said the orbiter will burn up in the atmosphere eventually.

The official statement and Dorman's observations have led to speculation that the craft's descent may take place in an uncontrolled manner, increasing the possibility that debris will fall in populated areas.

Additional coverage:


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday July 14 2016, @07:23AM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday July 14 2016, @07:23AM (#374294) Journal

    descent may take place in an uncontrolled manner, increasing the possibility that debris will fall in populated areas.

    Unless you have enough fuel on board for a precise and sustained burn, the precision with which you can dump a satellite with deployed soar panels is suspect at best.

    Depending on the orbital track the expectation of hitting land is roughly about 25% and the chances of hitting a populated area is much much smaller than that.

    Still its unfortunate the Chinese waited so long to deorbit this thing. When they blew up one of their own satellites with another satellite it was clear they don't care too much about the space junk they leave flying around a up there.
    Unfortunately, they seem to be following American and Russian examples.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday July 14 2016, @09:26AM

    by anubi (2828) on Thursday July 14 2016, @09:26AM (#374307) Journal

    Here's hoping either the Chinese or another space agency can assist in getting it back in place.

    It cost a lot to get that thing up there... shame to let it all come back apart.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2016, @01:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2016, @01:01PM (#374338)

      Anyone know the orbital track of this thing? If launched from mainland China it probably covers most of the temperate zones??

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 14 2016, @02:04PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday July 14 2016, @02:04PM (#374358)

      What goes up, must come down.

      At least for all the space stations they've launched so far and put in relatively low orbit (all of them).

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Thursday July 14 2016, @01:10PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 14 2016, @01:10PM (#374340)

    Judging the abuse of their local environment i doubt space is any concern at all.

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    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 14 2016, @05:02PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday July 14 2016, @05:02PM (#374418)

      Every debris associated with that Chinese station is headed down pretty soon. We can't complain that they won't leave that orbit as clean as they had found it.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by butthurt on Thursday July 14 2016, @07:51PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Thursday July 14 2016, @07:51PM (#374476) Journal

    It's customary to carry enough fuel for a de-orbit manoeuvre: it was done with the Salyut stations, with Skylab, and with Mir.

    I'm not sure how much the solar panels affect the descent. At a guess, they might break off when, or before, the forces on them became enough to drastically change the motion of the main body of the craft. Certainly the panels don't make a craft's descent more predictable. Controllers wanted Skylab to come down in the ocean south of South Africa, but it actually came down on Western Australia.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab#Re-entry [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday July 14 2016, @08:29PM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday July 14 2016, @08:29PM (#374496) Journal

      The very same Wiki link you posted says this about skylab:

      NASA first considered as early as 1962 the potential risks of a space station reentry, but decided not to incorporate a retrorocket system in Skylab due to cost and acceptable risk.

      So it seems unlikely that skylab carried enough fuel for a de-orbit burn, since it didn't have any engines, and required occasional orbital boosts by Apollo visits.

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      • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday July 14 2016, @09:53PM

        by butthurt (6141) on Thursday July 14 2016, @09:53PM (#374530) Journal

        Ah, I was looking at the bit that says "ground controllers adjusted Skylab's orientation to try to minimize the risk of re-entry on a populated area." Bit of a difference there. Thanks.