Tiangong-1 – China’s First Space Station – is Likely to Crash Back to Earth

Tiangong-1, China’s first space station, could make an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere sooner than expected, an amateur astronomer has warned.

Tiangong-1, nicknamed —was launched from the Jiuquan launch centre in Gansu province in September 2011. Chinese space agency had planned to bring down the station into the ocean in a controlled crash, but it is now believed that Chinese scientists have now lost control of it, and satellite is currently traveling in a deteriorating orbit, meaning it could come down to Earth much sooner than expected and explode into pieces of molten metal.

“If I am right, China will wait until the last minute to let the world know it has a problem with their space station,” amateur satellite tracker Thomas Dorman told Space.com.

“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.”

Dorman says he has been monitoring the path of satellite since its launch in 2011.

According to Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, Chinese authorities’ silence suggests the satellite is already in freefall mode.

“That would seem to suggest that it’s not being deorbited under control. That’s the implication.” Cheng told Space.com.

China aims to create a big space complex in Earth’s orbit by 2020, and Taingong-1 was launched as the first step towards achieving that goal.  The last manned mission to Tiangong-1 was completed in June 2013, and then the space lab was put in sleep mode. In March this year, some reports surface about loss of radio connection with the space station. However, China’s space agency never commented on these reports. Xinhua, China’s official press agency, has confirmed that the satellite is now dead, but said it was being continually monitored.

It is believed that Tiangong-1 has now joined the group of space junk. There are over 20,000 space junk items orbiting the Earth in unstable low orbits. Scientists say these pieces would either orbit the Earth indefinitely, or hurtle back to the surface one day. Because Tiangong-1 is big in size, it would probably not burn up completely in the atmosphere and may produce hazardous consequences after reaching the ground.

“Sometimes, the odds just do not work out, so this may bear watching,” Mr Dorman warned.