The Tiangong-1 space station is hurtling back to Earth this weekend and no-one knows when or where it is going to crash.
China’s first space lab – the Tiangong-1 or “Heavenly Palace” – is tumbling back towards Earth and is expected to crash this weekend. No-one knows exactly where, no-one knows exactly when. However, experts say the chances of it doing any harm are extremely slim.
The unmanned space station is in orbit at about 280 kilometres above the Earth and is believed to be out of control.
When and where will Tiangong-1 come down?
As of Friday Tiangong-1 has been predicted to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and crash at around 16.00 CET on Sunday, April 1. The estimate contains a margin for error of 16 hours so it could make its fiery descent anytime between Saturday night and Monday morning, European time.
If the exact time is not known, then the location is even more uncertain. The spacecraft is making dozens of orbits of the Earth over several days, hitting speeds of 27,000 kilometres an hour.
The Aerospace Corporation, which carries out research for the United States, says confidently that the object will re-enter somewhere between 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South latitudes, which covers vasts parts of the Earth. The ranges that are not covered include Antarctica and the bottom tip of South America, northern Europe, northern North America, the Arctic and parts of central Asia.
Engineers say the fact the spacecraft is tumbling makes it hard to predict how atmospheric drag will affect it. “It is the upper atmosphere that will create a drag that will eventually bring down the station. That drag is very, very hard to understand and predict,” Holger Krag, head of the Debris Office at the European Space Agency told Reuters TV. How big is it — and will it hit me?
Tiangong-1 weights 8.5 metric tons and has been described as being the size of a school bus. That is tiny compared to the International Space Station, for example. However, it is larger than most man-made debris re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
