Sometime this winter, this large satellite is coming down. I expect we will not hear anything until they actually know where and even then if it happens to be a real problem. After all if it happens to be the Pacific, no one really cares.
It is a reminder though that all our near earth material will eventually decay and fall unless fueled to maintain station. In the very long term most of that space junk will also come down. Yet that is a long way away and we keep adding to it.
We really need to pay much more attention to our garbage everywhere and plan solutions. In space it is really no trick to set up a monofilament bubble to enclose out working spaces. We do not want to lose that either, but the benefit is that it can capture even us.. .
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CONFIRMED: China's Space Station Is Out Of Control And Currently Crashing Towards Earth
When China launched its first space station in 2011, it had great ambitions of using the craft to set up a larger space complex. But the Chinese space agency lost control of Tiangong-1 in September 2016, and now experts predict the 8.5 tonne craft will come crashing back down to Earth within months.
Worryingly, experts are unsure precisely when the space
station will head towards Earth - or where the debris will land. Chinese
officials confirmed that they had lost control of the spacecraft in September
2016, and have now predicted that it will come down to Earth between
October 2017 and April 2018.
The station's orbit has also been steadily decaying, and
in recent weeks it has started to fall faster. Speaking to the Guardian, Dr Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist
from Harvard University, said: 'Now that [its] perigee is below 300km and
it is in denser atmosphere, the rate of decay is getting higher.
'I expect it will come down a few months from now – late
2017 or early 2018.' The Chinese space agency has been tracking the space
station, and vowed to issue warnings if there are any potential collisions
imminent.
But not everyone is convinced by this. Thomas
Dorman, an amateur satellite tracker, told Space.com: 'If I am right, China will wait until the
last minute to let the world know it has a problem with their space station. 'It could be a real bad day if pieces of this came down
in a populated area, but odds are it will land in the ocean or in an
unpopulated area.'
Much of the spacecraft is expected to burn up in the
atmosphere upon re-entry. But Dr McDowell says that some parts might still weigh up
to 100kg when they crash into the Earth's surface - a size that could cause
some serious damage. And Dr McDowell added that we may only have hours of
warning about where the spacecraft will land.
He said: 'You really can't
steer these things.'Even a couple of days before it re-enters we probably won't
know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it's going to come
down. 'Not knowing when it's going to come
down translates as not knowing where it's going to come down.'
Tiangong-1, which means
'Heavenly Palace', was launched in September 2011 with the hope of creating a
larger space complex that China wants to be operational in Earth orbit around
2020. The module performed a series of docking exercises, including the
uncrewed Shenzhou-8 mission in 2011 and the crewed Shenzhou-10 mission in 2012.
According to the China
Manned Space Engineering (CMSE) office, Tiangong-1 also contains Earth
observation instrumentation and space environment detectors.
In a statement in 2014,
officials from CMSE, said: 'Tiangong-1 has obtained a great deal of application
and science data, which is valuable in mineral resources investigation, ocean
and forest application, hydrologic and ecological environment monitoring, land
use, urban thermal environment monitoring and emergency disaster control.'
