Tiangong 1

Diddums · 1 Apr 2018 at 16:16

For those of you who missed this, today is a rather important day in space exploration as the Chinese space station Tiangong 1 is crashing back down to earth. Don't panic, you're not gonna have a rocket booster crash in to your garden, most of it will burn up on re-entry although there is a chance that some debris will make landfall. The station launched in to orbit on 29 September 2011 and stopped responding to commands in 2016. Its orbit has decayed to the point of re-entry over the last two years.

Insert "Made in China" joke here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1
https://www.space.com/40164-chinese-space-station-crash-last-day.html

Glaucus · 1 Apr 2018 at 16:21

Joke about the garden? As Chinese rocket boosters doninfact do that often.

Be nice if it was near some observation places to see footage etc. But likely to be at deep sea

Diddums · 1 Apr 2018 at 16:25

Glaucus said:
Joke about the garden? As Chinese rocket boosters doninfact do that often.

Be nice if it was near some observation places to see footage etc. But likely to be at deep sea

It was a lame attempt at humour. My brain is a bit pickled at the moment

Sankari · 1 Apr 2018 at 16:26

It was only a prototype, but they managed to get five years out of it, and successfully docked three spacecraft. Pretty good value, tbh.

Diddums · 1 Apr 2018 at 16:30

My wife is watching Space Cowboys, how appropriate.

Sliver · 1 Apr 2018 at 20:52

I hope it lands on me, then I'll have a cool epitaph. "Here lies Sliver, killed by space junk".

cainer · 2 Apr 2018 at 01:34

ground track here with expected re-entry area, miles away from us...

http://www.heavens-above.com/GroundTrack.aspx

Panos · 2 Apr 2018 at 11:59

The radar picture when already on fire through the atmosphere, is pretty amazing.

@Diddums i do not see any reason for made in China jokes.
Britain is nowhere near the technological level to deploy on their own a space station, let alone 2.

China has Tiangong 2 already orbiting since 2016 and it will be greatly expanded by 2022. In the mean time "the west" are scrambling to find the money to keep ISS alive after 2020-1, while they are unable last 7 years to send people to it without Russian rockets designed 50 years back.

One astronaut Britain sent (Helen wasn't sponsored by Britain and had to go through hurdles to go to MiR as an American), using Russian rocket, that two and half years ago.
And expecting nothing better from Britain tbh, when more than half my work colleagues, all British born and educated with Uni degrees in computer science etc, didn't know what ISS was until the day of the launch.... Some still question the whole thing as a hoax.....

touch · 2 Apr 2018 at 12:22

Diddums said:
My wife is watching Space Cowboys, how appropriate.

Hardly, this sort of stuff happens all the time.
This was only the 50th largest object ever to make an uncontrolled descent, most of the other stuff is american.