China's Tiangong-1 space station will reenter atmosphere within weeks - Sensationalist Headlines

[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/06/chinas-tiangong-1-space-station-will-crash-to-earth-within-weeks[/URL] [QUOTE]China’s first space station is expected to come crashing down to Earth within weeks, but scientists have not been able to predict where the 8.5-tonne module will hit. The US-funded [URL="http://www.aerospace.org/cords/reentry-predictions/tiangong-1-reentry/"]Aerospace Corporation[/URL] estimates Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere during the first week of April, give or take a week. The European Space Agency says the module will come down [URL="http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2018/01/12/tiangong-1-reentry-updates/"]between 24 March and 19 April[/URL]. In 2016 [URL="https://www.theguardian.com/world/china"]China[/URL] admitted it had lost control of Tiangong-1 and would be unable to perform a controlled re-entry. The statement from Aerospace said there was “a chance that a small amount of debris” from the module will survive re-entry and hit the Earth. “If this should happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometres in size,” said Aerospace, a research organisation that advises government and private enterprise on space flight. Aerospace warned that the space station might be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive fuel called hydrazine on board. However, Aerospace insisted the chance of debris hitting anyone living in these nations was tiny. “When considering the worst-case location … the probability that a specific person (ie, you) will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist from Harvard University and space industry enthusiast, also sounded a note of caution. He said fragments from a similar-sized rocket re-entered the atmosphere and landed in Peru in January. “Every couple of years something like this happens, but Tiangong-1 is big and dense so we need to keep an eye on it,” he told the Guardian.[/QUOTE]

How typical of them kudos for trying though. Can never have enough space stuff

Wasn't it that long ago one of their rockets smashed into a village? So on top of their already planetary waste dumping they're doing interstellar waste dumping.

[QUOTE=Zergeant;53182420]Wasn't it that long ago one of their rockets smashed into a village? So on top of their already planetary waste dumping they're doing interstellar waste dumping.[/QUOTE] The station hasn't left low earth orbit, I don't think you can claim it's interstellar just yet.

Didn't they say that it was gonna fall in September of last year? Regardless, I've watched this thing fly over my house one night with the help of a tracking app, it was kind of spooky despite it just being a bright moving dot in the sky. Malfunctioned, and on an eventual crash course.

So that thing (or what's left of it after re-entry) could potentially crash on top of any of us at any moment. :scream:

[QUOTE=P.;53182482]So that thing (or what's left of it after re-entry) could potentially crash on top of any of us at any moment. :scream:[/QUOTE] Make yourself really big, get hit, sue somebody involving space, make tons of space-fueled dosh.

Huh, I didnt even knew that there was a space station other then iss

[QUOTE=WhyNott;53182529]Huh, I didnt even knew that there was a space station other then iss[/QUOTE] Tiangong 2 is also up there and still running fine. Technically there is also Genesis I and II, but they are unmanned prototypes by the private US company Bigelow Aerospace. The USSR had quite a few versions of the Salyut up, latest one of those dorbited in 1991 though. Space Station Mir went down in 2001. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations[/url]

[QUOTE=Mitsuma;53182542]Tiangong 2 is also up there and still running fine. Technically there is also Genesis I and II, but they are unmanned prototypes by the private US company Bigelow Aerospace. The USSR had quite a few versions of the Salyut up, latest one of those dorbited in 1991 though. Space Station Mir went down in 2001. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations[/url][/QUOTE] the chinese space stations are really tiny too, they don't even store any rations on the station, everything is launched within the front half of their soyuz clone

I'm gonna be pissed if it hits me

I'm gonna be pissed if it doesn't hit me

I'm gonna be pissed regardless

They'll probably just de-orbit it into the pacific.

[QUOTE=Jmir 54;53182383]How typical of them kudos for trying though. Can never have enough space stuff[/QUOTE] the US' skylab was supposed to hit an uninhabited part of south africa, and due to a miscalculation it landed in western australia, 300mi from Perth and close enough to several towns that kids could find chunks of it in their backyards something similar has happened to russian stations. we usually just let those drop when they're not needed anymore, but it's far from an exact science. [editline]7th March 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=benzinxrm;53182997]They'll probably just de-orbit it into the pacific.[/QUOTE] it's been out of service for like six years and completely cut off from ground comms/control for two, though. :v:

[QUOTE=benzinxrm;53182997]They'll probably just de-orbit it into the pacific.[/QUOTE] It's completely out of control. We don't know what's going to happen.

[QUOTE=Rastadogg;53183420]It's completely out of control. We don't know what's going to happen.[/QUOTE] Well, I personally hope it doesn't land on me. That would really fuck up my day if it did.

[QUOTE=Rastadogg;53183420]It's completely out of control. We don't know what's going to happen.[/QUOTE] Most likely this station will probably land in the ocean I think. This is from seeing television in the past about when older stations crashed into Earth.

[QUOTE=SAULSBASHWALL;53183832]Well, I personally hope it doesn't land on me. That would really fuck up my day if it did.[/QUOTE] You're more likely to die from a car accident tomorrow than anyone in the continental United-States would be to die from space debris in the next 10 years.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/01/asia/tiangong-1-china-space-lab-falls-intl/index.html

I had totally forgotten about this already, good thing it crashed in the ocean.

It was statistically more likely to hit the ocean than anywhere else in the entire world. My friend was panicking about it and I said to him it'd just make a big splash in the sea somewhere and be forgotten, but he wouldn't listen and went into a big rant about how it would hit a major metropolitan area, kill billions, and spawn an era of anti-space hatred. Utter loon.

The less people know about a subject, the more they're willing to share their opinion about it.

Billions? I can't imagine a space station big enough to wipe out billions of people. Probably gonna crash into the sea and sink as they usually do. Yeah they lost control a bit but the odds of it hitting any one of us here on facepunch are infinitesimal

Yeah I was agreeing that his friend was a loon, people tend to lack a lot of self-awareness when they lack knowledge about something so they'll spout whatever nonsense comes to their mind.