Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Lovely. China's space lab, descending uncontrolled into the atmosphere, will probably drop items on the ground, but it cannot be predicted where.

Tiangong 1, which translates to “Heavenly Palace,” is China's first space laboratory, launched in September 2011, serving as a prototype for a permanent space station that it aims to eventually build and launch. But six years after it first went into orbit, the 8½-ton laboratory is soon expected to meet a fiery and uncontrolled end, hurtling down to Earth and crashing somewhere — anywhere —  on the planet.
In September 2016, Chinese officials confirmed that they had lost control of the space lab and that it would crash into Earth sometime in the latter half of 2017. In May, China told the United Nations that the lab would reenter Earth between October and April 2018.
For spacecraft that remain in control, scientists carefully guide their reentry to a place on Earth called the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, a 2.5-mile-deep spot in the ocean known as the “spacecraft cemetery” about 3,000 miles off the eastern coast of New Zealand and 2,000 miles north of Antarctica. As of June 2016, more than 263 spacecraft had crashed at the cemetery since 1971, according to Popular Science.
The Chinese still have to learn, apparently, how to safely get rid of their used up space toys.  Meanwhile, stay tuned, as at some point we'll probably have a bit better of an idea where this space hulk will come down.

5 comments:

  1. You can track it here:
    http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37820

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  2. It will hit the Oroville Damn.

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  3. Hopefully,it won't kill anyone. If it does, I hope it's Rocket Man.

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  4. Belushi did a great sketch on SNL when Skylab reentered.
    I couldn't find that clip.
    But this seems appropriate:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFCU_Ld9snU

    Wayne Krulka

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  5. I was in Western Australia when Skylab came down.

    That was quite exciting, as parts of it burned upon reentry, and other parts hit the ground. Didn't hit anybody- though we could have been unlucky! I seem to remember that some newspaper had an award for the first piece that could be brought in, and somebody did get the money!

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