China's first space station reentered Earth's atmosphere over the South Pacific after almost seven years in space.

Radar Tiangong
Recent radar images of Tiangong-1 acquired by the Fraunhofer radar in Germany weeks prior to reentry.
ESA / Fraunhofer / FHR

It's down.

After an exciting last weekend in orbit, China's first space station Tiangong 1 (Chinese for "celestial palace") reentered Earth's atmosphere early Monday morning on April 2nd at 00:16 Universal Time, give or take a minute, over the South Pacific.

The United States Strategic Command's Joint Space Operations Center lists the reentry as occurring over latitude -14°S, longitude 164°W, 2,500 miles (4,000 km) south of Hawai'i and just over 300 miles east of American Samoa. The reentry occurred just after local noon.

The 8.5-ton, 34-foot long station was one of the largest objects to reenter in recent years, but it was by no means the largest ever: The reentry of 76-metric-ton Skylab in 1979, for example, was a media sensation. More recently, the 6-ton UARS satellite and the doomed Russian Mars mission Phobos-Grunt became reentry media celebs. Ironically, though the reentry of Tiangong-1 was uncontrolled and could have occurred anywhere from latitude 43N° to 43°S, it actually landed surprisingly close to Point Nemo — also known as the "satellite graveyard," the favored location for satellite disposal.

The reentry seems to have gone unwitnessed by human eyes. No credible videos or images of the reentry have surfaced, though there's always a chance that a wayward ship or aircraft might've been in visual range.

Tiangong over VT
Tiangong-1 passing over Springfield, Vermount on the morning of March 31, 2018.
Jim Hendrickson

Launched on September 29, 2011, from the Jiuquan Space Center in China, school bus-sized Tiangong 1 was tiny in comparison to the massive International Space Station. In fact, there was always a minor debate as to whether the single-roomed module was really a space station, or just a docking target for China to practice automated cargo delivery and departure for a larger station. Two crewed missions delivered six Chinese astronauts to Tiangong 1 for two-week stays in 2012 and 2013.

Tiangong 1's successor, Tiangong 2, was launched in 2016 and is still in orbit. China is often silent about their space exploration plans, so it's unclear if they'll revisit Tiangong 2 or when it would reenter. The Chinese Space Agency stated they would reenter Tiangong 1 after the final visit in 2013 . . . and then left it to reenter on its own nearly five years later.

Tiangong 1's final passes were difficult to see this past weekend, though observers from New England to New Zealand did manage to catch some of its final passes before it met with fiery doom. I saw UARS a few years back on its final orbit, and can attest that it was a real fast mover compared to the ISS.

Tiangong-1 NZ
Tiangong 1 from the past weekend on one of its final passes over New Zealand.
Ian Griffin

Predicting and Monitoring Reentry

NASA and the European Space Agency mounted a campaign to track the Chinese space station in an effort to better model future reentries. Unpredictable solar activity plays a key role, for example, in determining the height and density of Earth's atmosphere, which drags on satellites in low-Earth orbit. An ebb in solar activity — such as we're now in, as we head toward solar minimum in 2019-2020 — means less drag.

"The solar activity can influence the density of the upper atmosphere dramatically,” says Holger Krag (ESA-Space Debris Office). “One day we might be able to measure and predict the object's behavior, but the prediction of the solar activity will always be difficult.”

TIRA radar
The powerful Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA) operated by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques is located in Wachtberg, Germany, and often used by ESA to track space debris.
ESA / Fraunhofer FHR

In the last 48 hours prior to reentry, predictions crept back from mid-day of April 1st  to early April 2nd, with the reentry location largely unknown. The station's exact mass was another big unknown, as the “8.5 metric tons” often cited in the media  assumes a ton of fuel still on board.

Public interest in the reentry spiked just before the weekend. We saw the usual carnival of “meteor wrongs” circulate around social media, including images purporting to be the Tiangong 1 reentry such as clips of the reentry of Mir, Hayabusa, and even screen captures from the movie Armageddon (!).

Arm-chair satellite sleuths also tried their hands at modeling the final reentry. It was interesting to see just how various tracking platforms, amateur and professional alike, stacked up against reality.

“This reentry was an interesting case, because it concerned an object with a larger mass than most reentries and included a few unknowns, most notably the exact mass of the station,” says Marco Langbroek (Leiden University, The Netherlands).

“What impressed me from monitoring this reentry,” Langbroek adds, “is how sensitive the time of reentry is to correct estimates of the influence of solar activity on the state of Earth's thermosphere, as well as to correct estimates of the drag the spacecraft is experiencing.”

Tiangong-1 Final Forcasts
Projections of the final reentry of Tiangong-1 by U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Space Operations Center, ESA, the Aerospace Cooperation, and various satellite tracking experts versus the final reentry point. It's important to note that the error bars for all of these projections overlap.
Marco Langbroek / Sattrackcam Leiden

What's next for China? Current International Traffic in Arms Regulations restrict NASA from exchanging technology with China, making China a conspicuously absent from the International Space Station program. Instead, China's crewed space program is going it alone in low-Earth orbit. China plans to launch the core of its Tianhe 1 ("harmony in the heavens" in Chinese) modular space station next year.


Track upcoming reentries worldwide on the Aerospace Cooperation's website.

Comments


Image of Anthony Barreiro

Anthony Barreiro

April 3, 2018 at 6:04 pm

I think US law should be amended to allow cooperation with China in space on a case-by-case basis, perhaps by requiring a Presidential waiver subject to Congressional review. Misappropriation of intellectual property is a real concern, but adequate safeguards could be established. Cooperation between the US and the Soviets / Russians has been beneficial to both countries and has helped to ease tensions when there have been few others venues for Russians and Americans to pursue common goals. Space belongs to all of us. The International Space Station should be open to all spacefaring nations. Humanity will be better able to achieve more ambitious objectives if we all work together.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Image of RC Silk

RC Silk

April 4, 2018 at 5:04 pm

IF "thin" (lightweight) skins can't prevent micro-meteorite damage AND thicker, heavier skins can't be launched to begin with, THEN why not simply design the thinnest skins possible for vessels, such that when they *do* lose orbit, they are easier to burn up completely during re-entry?

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Image of wrosing@lco.global

[email protected]

April 7, 2018 at 1:00 am

I suspect the skins are the least of the re-entry problems. There are attached engines and various bulkheads, batteries, gear boxes for solar panels, and other concentrations of mass designed to deal with pressure issues -- pushing OUT, which is somewhat counter-intuitive for
we Earthers.

WERSBA

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Image of wrosing@lco.global

[email protected]

April 7, 2018 at 12:56 am

Anthony you are right-on. Talking and cooperating on common interests is always the right path. I will note no company HAS to move operations to China, so if the PRC wants to play IP games -- that is fine,
as Nancy used to say: "Just say No." Companies move there to go for lower labor costs. But note these are American and European companies making the decision to go for lower costs and so *they* cave to the demand for IP sharing.

The idea the US should not cooperate scientifically with any country is bad policy. But then, science seems to be new bad policy in the US. Everyone please think carefully as you vote. That is all I ask.

WERSBA

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Image of bwana

bwana

April 8, 2018 at 1:34 am

Yes, full international cooperation on space exploration would be beneficial to all countries. If the US or Russia or China or whoever wants to insure another country is not getting ahead, sharing intellectual property is the only way to accomplish it.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Image of RC Silk

RC Silk

April 4, 2018 at 4:56 pm

Well -- at least the predictions were *close* -- it did, after all, hit the Earth.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Image of tomwys

tomwys

April 6, 2018 at 6:12 pm

Amen on selective ITAR!!!

You must be logged in to post a comment.

You must be logged in to post a comment.