China has officially confirmed that its Tiangong-1 space station will plummet to Earth in 2017, fuelling speculation that the station is out of control.
A senior official of the Chinese space program has confirmed what we’ve begun to fear; the country’s Tiangong-1 space station will fall to Earth by 2017 and could potentially be out of control.
Xinhua News Agency reports that the space station is presently intact and is orbiting Earth at a height of 370 kilometers.
Read: China reportedly loses control of its first space station, Tiangong-1
Wu Ping, the deputy director of China’s manned space engineering office, stated that “based on our calculation and analysis, most parts of the space lab will burn up during falling.”
Most parts. That’s reassuring.
Tiangong-1 – translated as ‘Heavenly Palace’ – was launched in 2011 as China’s first manned space station, and concluded its mission in March this year. Earlier this year, amateur astronomers noted that the station had begun to seemingly drift out of orbit and had begun heading for Earth. The silence of the Chinese government only compounded fears that the station was out of control.
T.S. Kelso, a senior research astrodynamicist at the Center for Space Standards and Innovation previously commented that “œThe suggestion has been made [that] the reason China hasn‘t done a re-entry of Tiangong-1 is, the space station is low on fuel, and China is waiting on a natural decay to a much lower orbit before they can do a burn to bring the station down.“
However, the situation has sparked a level of fear – as should the station re-enter Earth‘s atmosphere at an uncontrolled trajectory, harmful pieces of debris could shower settled regions of the globe.
China has already begun preparations to launch a new fully-fledged space station, named Tiangong-2.
Read: The US Air Force Space Command has formed the Space Mission Force to counter threats
What are your thoughts? Be sure to let us know your opinion in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
Pictured: The Chelyabinsk meteor enters Earth’s atmosphere over Russia.
