A defunct Chinese space lab has re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and mostly burned up, authorities in Beijing said late Sunday.
It was not immediately clear if the remains of the space station, known as Tiangong-1, had been accounted for. Earlier forecasts had said only about 10 percent of the bus-sized, 8.5-ton spacecraft would likely survive re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines.
The U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Force Space Component Command confirmed that Tiangong-1 re-entered Earth’s atmopshere over the South Pacific Ocean at 8:16 p.m. ET.
Launched in 2011, Tiangong-1 was China’s first space station, serving as an experimental platform for bigger projects, such as the Tiangong-2 launched in September 2016 and a future permanent Chinese space station.
Two crews of Chinese astronauts lived on the station while testing docking procedures and other operations. Its last crew departed in 2013 and contact with it was cut in 2016. – READ MORE
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