Radar images of Tiangong-1 from different perspectives taken at an orbital height of approx. 270 km above the Earth's surface. Photo / Fraunhofer
Radar images of Tiangong-1 from different perspectives taken at an orbital height of approx. 270 km above the Earth's surface. Photo / Fraunhofer
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.
The Chinese space office 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 12.16pm AEST.
Just to point out, before it re-entered earlier this afternoon, I managed to get a pic of Tiangong as it whizzed across the Otago Peninsula sky twixt Orion & Taurus on Friday night. ;-) pic.twitter.com/tkv2FqMYPk
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.
The 10.4m-long Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace 1, was launched in 2011 to carry out docking and orbit experiments as part of China's ambitious space programme, which aims to place a permanent station in orbit by 2023.
NW of Tahiti - it managed to miss the 'spacecraft graveyard' which is further south! pic.twitter.com/Sj4e42O7Dc
It was originally planned to be decommissioned in 2013 but its mission was repeatedly extended.
China had said its re-entry would occur in late 2017 but that process was delayed, leading some experts to suggest the space laboratory is out of control.
A model of China's Tiangong-1 space station in Zhuhai, southern China. Photo / AP file
The Chinese tabloid Global Times said today that worldwide media hype about the re-entry reflected overseas "envy" of China's space industry.
"It's normal for spacecraft to re-enter the atmosphere, yet Tiangong-1 received so much attention partly because some Western countries are trying to hype and sling mud at China's fast-growing aerospace industry," it said.
— Fraunhofer FHR engl. (@Fraunhofer_FHRe) April 1, 2018
Only about 10 per cent of the bus-sized, 8.5-tonne spacecraft was expected to not be burned up on re-entry - mainly its heavier components such as its engines. The chances of any one being hit by debris are considered less than one in a trillion.
The station hosted 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.
Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.
China's defunct #Tiangong1 space lab is expected to make a fiery re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, but poses little threat as much larger objects have plunged back to Earth pic.twitter.com/QjW4bNMpWG
