China’s Heavenly Palace to make an uncontrolled return from the heavens

Artist's concept of Tiangong-1 space station with a Shenzhou spacecraft docking. (credit: CNSA)

China says its first space station, launched in 2011, will return to Earth sometime during the second half of 2017. Chinese space officials cannot say exactly when, or where the Tiangong-1 laboratory will return to Earth, however.

The small space station, named "Heavenly Palace," is presently at an orbit of about 370km, Chinese officials said. But it can no longer sustain such a high orbit and will gradually begin falling back to Earth. China's official news service, Xinhua, further reported:

"Based on our calculation and analysis, most parts of the space lab will burn up during falling," she said, adding that it was unlikely to affect aviation activities or cause damage to the ground.

China has always highly valued the management of space debris, conducting research and tests on space debris mitigation and cleaning, Wu said.

Now, China will continue to monitor Tiangong-1 and strengthen early warning for possible collision with objects. If necessary, China will release a forecast of its falling and report it internationally, said Wu.

The 8.5-ton, 10.4-meter-long facility served as an initial test bed for life-support systems in orbit and served as a precursor for China's plans to launch a larger space station in the 2020s. A second "Heavenly Palace," Tiangong-2, was launched earlier this month for further studies. It, too, will eventually return to Earth in an uncontrolled manner.