China's first space station about to plunge to Earth

This undated photo shows researchers testing China’s first space station module Tiangong 1 at a launch center in Gansu province, northern China. The module was launched Sept. 29, 2011.
This undated photo shows researchers testing China’s first space station module Tiangong 1 at a launch center in Gansu province, northern China. The module was launched Sept. 29, 2011.

BEIJING -- China's defunct and reportedly out-of-control Tiangong 1 space station is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere sometime this weekend.

It poses only a slight risk to people and property on the ground, since most of the bus-size, 8.5-ton vehicle is expected to burn up on re-entry, although space agencies don't know exactly when or where that will happen.

The European Space Agency predicts the station will re-enter the atmosphere between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon -- an estimate it calls "highly variable" because the ever-changing shape of the upper atmosphere affects the speed of objects falling into it.

The Chinese space agency's latest estimate puts re-entry of its first space station between Saturday and Wednesday.

Western space experts say they believe China has lost control of the station. China's chief space laboratory designer Zhu Zongpeng has denied Tiangong was out of control but hasn't provided specifics on what, if anything, China is doing to guide the craft's re-entry.

Based on Tiangong 1's orbit, it will come to Earth somewhere between latitudes of 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, or roughly somewhere over most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America. Out of range are Russia, Canada and northern Europe.

Based on its size, only about 10 percent of the spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines. The chances of anyone person on Earth being hit by debris is considered less than one in a trillion.

Ren Guoqiang, China's Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters Thursday that Beijing has been briefing the United Nations and the international community about Tiangong 1's re-entry through multiple channels.

Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.

Launched in 2011, Tiangong 1 was China's first space station, serving as an experimental platform for bigger projects such as the Tiangong 2 launched in September 2016 and a future permanent Chinese space station.

The station, whose name translates to "Heavenly Palace," played host to two crewed missions that included China's first female astronauts and served as a test platform for perfecting docking procedures and other operations.

Its last crew departed in 2013 and contact with it was cut in 2016. Since then it has been orbiting gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

NASA isn't tracking the Tiangong 1. The military is, however, at the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Information for this article was contributed by Christopher Bodeen of The Associated Press and by Angela Fritz of The Washington Post.

A Section on 03/30/2018

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