Tiangong-1, China's Space Station Breaks up within Months
China’s first space station - Tiangong-1 - Launched in September 2011.
Tiangong 1, which means “Heavenly Palace is serving as a prototype for a permanent space station that it aims to eventually build and launch.
Six years after it first went into orbit, the 8.5-tonne laboratory is soon expected to meet a fiery and uncontrolled end, hurtling down to Earth and crashing somewhere - anywhere - on the planet. Because engineers have lost control of the capsule and it will be thrown around by the wind as it comes down. Even slight changes in atmospheric conditions can alter the landing site “from one continent to the next”.
Much of the debris will burn up on its way into Earth’s atmosphere. But chunks as big as 100kg will make their way through and fall from the skies.
There have been a few uncontrolled station reentries in the past
In 1979, NASA’s Skylab space station hit Australia during its own fall to Earth, and the Soviet Union’s Salyut 7 space station followed suit over Argentina in 1991.. .but none of those have ever caused injuries or property damage.
Tiangong-1’s successor, Tiangong-2, was launched in September 2016
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist from Harvard University, told The Guardian that he expected Tiangong-1 to land in late 2017 or early 2018.
We can expect much causality wont happened.
by
JAFAR SADIK
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