By my calculations, Tiangong-1 will be the 50th most massive uncontrolled reentry from Earth orbit in history.
Out-of-control Chinese space station Tiangong-1 is set to smash through the Earth's atmosphere over the long Easter weekend — and Australia is in its path.
CHINA’S defunct Tiangong-1 space station has finally crashed after re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, as stargazers tried to get a glimpse of it.
China’s Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) has confirmed the space station has re-entered atmosphere and mostly burned up.
It has landed in the South Pacific after it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 10.16am AEST.
Only about 10 per cent of the bus-sized, 8.5-tonne spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines.
The US Strategic Command’s Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC) issued a statement saying that its re-entry was confirmed theough coordination with counterparts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the UK.
The station has landed north-west of Tahiti.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics stated: “North-west of Tahiti - it managed to miss the ‘spacecraft graveyard’ which is further south!”
The Chinese space office had said shortly before that it was expected to re-enter off the Brazilian coast in the South Atlantic near the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
NW of Tahiti - it managed to miss the 'spacecraft graveyard' which is further south! pic.twitter.com/Sj4e42O7Dc — Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) April 2, 2018
Based on the space station’s orbit, it could have come back to Earth somewhere 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, a range covering most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America.
The eight-tonne craft was unlikely to cause any damage when crashed, but its fiery disintegration will offer a “splendid” show akin to a meteor shower, Chinese authorities said.
Scientists said falling debris poses only a slight risk to people on the ground. The chances of any one person being hit by debris were considered less than one in a trillion.
Dr Zhu Jin, director of Beijing Planetarium, said the chances of anyone being hit by a piece of falling debris were lower than those of winning the lottery.
“The high speeds of returning satellites mean they can travel thousands of kilometres during that time window, and that makes it very hard to predict a precise location of reentry,” said Holger Krag, head of the ESA’s Space Debris Office, in comments posted on the agency’s website.
The ESA added, however, that the space lab would likely break up over water, which covers most of the planet’s surface.
There is “no need for people to worry”, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said earlier on its WeChat social media account.
Such falling spacecraft do “not crash into the Earth fiercely like in sci-fi movies, but turn into a splendid (meteor shower) and move across the beautiful starry sky as they race towards the Earth”, it said.
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 played host to two crewed missions 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.
The module — which was used to practise complicated manual and automatic docking techniques — was originally intended to be used for just two years, but ended up serving considerably longer.
During its brief lifespan, it hosted Chinese astronauts on several occasions as they performed experiments and even taught a class that was broadcast into schools across the country.
Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.
Many Western space experts think 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 was doing to guide the craft’s return to Earth.
Tiangong-1 had been slated for a controlled re-entry, but ceased functioning in March 2016. Space enthusiasts have been bracing for its return ever since.
The ESA has said that ground controllers were no longer able to command Tiangong-1 to fire its on-board engines, which could have been used to control where it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.
In contrast, Russia brought down its massive Mir space station through a controlled re-entry over the Pacific Ocean in 2001.
A Chinese spaceflight engineer denied earlier this year that the lab was out of control.
Chinese media have downplayed comments by the ESA and others that the country’s engineers have lost control of the lab, with reports saying that the idea it is “out of control” is an invention of foreign media.
But on Chinese social media, commenters criticised the government’s reluctance to own up to the situation.
“Can you or can’t you report that you’ve lost control of the situation?” one person wrote on the Twitter-like Weibo.
“It’s not unusual that something this complicated would have a mishap.”
Beijing began its manned spaceflight programme in 1990 after buying Russian technology that enabled it to become the third country with the ability to launch humans into space, following the former Soviet Union and the United States.
China sent another space lab, Tiangong-2, into orbit in September 2016 as a stepping stone to its goal of having a crewed space station by 2022.
It also plans to send a manned mission to the moon in the future.
Liputan6.com, Jakarta - Orbit Satelit LAPAN (Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa Nasional) baru saja menyiarkan konfirmasi sementara, yaitu bekas satelit komunikasi milik China, Tiangong-1, akan jatuh ke Bumi pada 2 April 2018, waktu dini hari.
Update re-entry Tiangong-1 diprediksi tanggal 2 April 2018 Pukul 00:15 UT ± 6 jam. Update prediksi berikutnya dalam 12 jam. Kesimpulan sementara: lintasan terakhir Tiangong-1 saat re-entry diperkirakan tidak melewati wilayah Indonesia @LAPAN_RI pic.twitter.com/gAmnwlR8v7
— Orbit Satelit LAPAN (@OrbsatLAPAN) April 1, 2018
Menurut pengamatan intensif Orbit Satelit LAPAN yang dilakukan pada akhir pekan ini, satelit Tiangong-1 diketahui tidak jadi jatuh melewati wilayah Indonesia.
Adapun konfirmasi selanjutnya akan disampaikan sekitar pukul 21.00 WIB, di situs dan akun media sosial resmi LAPAN.
Sebelumnya dikabarkan berdasarkan orbit, Tiangong-1 akan jatuh di suatu tempat di Bumi, di antara garis 43 derajat Lintang Utara dan 43 derajat Lintang Selatan. Demikian seperti dikutip dari news.com.au pada Kamis, 29 Maret 2018. Rentang perkiraan wilayah tersebut mencakup Amerika Selatan, Australia, sebagian wilayah pulau Papua, dan sebagian wilayah Pulau Utara di Selandia Baru.
Sementara itu, Kementerian Luar Negeri China menegaskan, sebagaimana dikutip dari CNN pada Kamis, 28 Maret 2018, wahana antariksa berbobot 8,5 ton itu tidak mungkin menyentuh tanah di Bumi. Pasalnya, ketika menyentuh atmosfer, "Istana Langit" tersebut sudah terbakar habis.
Sedangkan untuk mengetahui perkembangan selanjutnya, pemerintah China menyatakan akan bertanggung jawab dengan terus memantau pergerakan Tiangong-1 , termasuk berkoordinasi dengan PBB.
Berbicara saat melakukan jumpa pers, Juru Bicara Kemenlu China, Lu Kang, menyampaikan bahwa pemerintah secara berkelanjutan terus memberi informasi kepada badan antariksa PBB mengenai informasi terkini Tiangong-1.
Menurut Lu, China siap mengambil sikap dan berlaku transparan terhadap potensi jatuhnya satelit Tiangong-1 .
"Jika dijumpai kasus demikian, maka kami akan langsung mengontak negara yang bersangkutan," demikian kata Lu, sebagaimana dikutip dari Channel News Asia, Jumat 30 Maret 2018.
"Mengenai pemberitaan yang saya dengar, untuk saat ini, fragmen yang jatuh ke tanah tidak terlalu besar, kemungkinannya sangat kecil," imbuhnya.
Simak video tentang Satelit Pemantau Polisi yang diluncurkan oleh Badan Antariksa Eropa berikut:
Badan Antariksa Eropa meluncurkan satelit baru yang akan mengumpulkan data yang bermanfaat bagi kehidupan sehari-hari. VOA
(CNN) It was an uneventful end to what was once one of China's highest profile space projects.
The Tiangong-1 space lab re-entered the Earth's atmosphere Monday morning, landing in the middle of the South Pacific, China Manned Space Agency said.
"Most parts were burned up in the re-entry process," it added.
The space lab, whose name translates to "Heavenly Palace" , was launched in September 2011 as a prototype for China's ultimate space goal: a permanent space station is expected to launch around 2022.
Its demise captured public attention in recent weeks, as scientists around the world tracked its uncontrolled descent.
