CHINA’S defunct Tiangong-1 space station has finally crashed after re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, as stargazers tried to get a glimpse of it.

China’s Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) has confirmed the space station has re-entered atmosphere and mostly burned up.

It has landed in the South Pacific after it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 10.16am AEST.

Only about 10 per cent of the bus-sized, 8.5-tonne spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines.

The US Strategic Command’s Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC) issued a statement saying that its re-entry was confirmed theough coordination with counterparts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the UK.

The station has landed north-west of Tahiti.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics stated: “North-west of Tahiti - it managed to miss the ‘spacecraft graveyard’ which is further south!”

The Chinese space office had said shortly before that it was expected to re-enter off the Brazilian coast in the South Atlantic near the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Based on the space station’s orbit, it could have come back to Earth somewhere 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, a range covering most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America.

The eight-tonne craft was unlikely to cause any damage when crashed, but its fiery disintegration will offer a “splendid” show akin to a meteor shower, Chinese authorities said.

Scientists said falling debris poses only a slight risk to people on the ground. The chances of any one person being hit by debris were considered less than one in a trillion.

Dr Zhu Jin, director of Beijing Planetarium, said the chances of anyone being hit by a piece of falling debris were lower than those of winning the lottery.

“The high speeds of returning satellites mean they can travel thousands of kilometres during that time window, and that makes it very hard to predict a precise location of reentry,” said Holger Krag, head of the ESA’s Space Debris Office, in comments posted on the agency’s website.

The ESA added, however, that the space lab would likely break up over water, which covers most of the planet’s surface.

There is “no need for people to worry”, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said earlier on its WeChat social media account.

Such falling spacecraft do “not crash into the Earth fiercely like in sci-fi movies, but turn into a splendid (meteor shower) and move across the beautiful starry sky as they race towards the Earth”, it said.

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. The station played host to two crewed missions and served as a test platform for perfecting docking procedures and other operations. Its last crew departed in 2013 and contact with it was cut in 2016.

The module — which was used to practise complicated manual and automatic docking techniques — was originally intended to be used for just two years, but ended up serving considerably longer.

During its brief lifespan, it hosted Chinese astronauts on several occasions as they performed experiments and even taught a class that was broadcast into schools across the country.

Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

Many Western space experts think China has lost control of the station. China’s chief space laboratory designer, Zhu Zongpeng, has denied Tiangong was out of control, but hasn’t provided specifics on what, if anything, China was doing to guide the craft’s return to Earth.

Tiangong-1 had been slated for a controlled re-entry, but ceased functioning in March 2016. Space enthusiasts have been bracing for its return ever since.

The ESA has said that ground controllers were no longer able to command Tiangong-1 to fire its on-board engines, which could have been used to control where it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.

In contrast, Russia brought down its massive Mir space station through a controlled re-entry over the Pacific Ocean in 2001.

A Chinese spaceflight engineer denied earlier this year that the lab was out of control.

Chinese media have downplayed comments by the ESA and others that the country’s engineers have lost control of the lab, with reports saying that the idea it is “out of control” is an invention of foreign media.

But on Chinese social media, commenters criticised the government’s reluctance to own up to the situation.

“Can you or can’t you report that you’ve lost control of the situation?” one person wrote on the Twitter-like Weibo.

“It’s not unusual that something this complicated would have a mishap.”

Beijing began its manned spaceflight programme in 1990 after buying Russian technology that enabled it to become the third country with the ability to launch humans into space, following the former Soviet Union and the United States.

China sent another space lab, Tiangong-2, into orbit in September 2016 as a stepping stone to its goal of having a crewed space station by 2022.

It also plans to send a manned mission to the moon in the future. </s> In this Nov. 16, 2010 file photo, visitors sit beside a model of China’s Tiangong-1 space station at the 8th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai in southern China’s Guangdong Province. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

China’s defunct Tiangong 1 space station mostly burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere over the central South Pacific on Monday, Chinese space authorities said.

The experimental space laboratory re-entered around 8:15 a.m. Beijing time, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said.

Scientists monitoring the craft’s disintegrating orbit had forecast the craft would mostly burn up and would pose only the slightest of risks to people. Analysis from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center showed it had mostly burned up.

Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at Australian National University, said that Tiangong 1’s re-entry was “mostly successful” and that it would have been better if the space station had not been spinning toward Earth.

“It could have been better, obviously, if it wasn’t tumbling, but it landed in the Southern Pacific Ocean, and that’s kind of where you hope it would land,” Tucker said.

“It’s been tumbling and spinning for a while, which means that when it really starts to come down it’s less predictable about what happens to it,” Tucker said. He likened it to an airplane landing, saying it’s more difficult to predict where a plane that is “shaking around and moving” will land than one that is smoothly descending.

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.

Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

Earlier forecasts had said that only about 10 per cent of the bus-sized, 8.5-ton spacecraft would likely survive re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines.

“The biggest takeaway from this is that as we put more things into space, all countries, we have to be aware that we do have to plan for these sorts of issues that are happening,” Tucker said.

Roger Thompson, senior engineering specialist with the Aerospace Corporation in Virginia, said modeling of Tiangong 1’s re-entry by monitors in the U.S. had been highly accurate, leaving him feeling “great” about their predictions.

“We believe it was an uncontrolled entry,” Thompson said, adding that the corporation’s own estimate had been just 15 minutes behind the time announced by China.

The lack of control was not unusual given that about 15 per cent of satellites re-enter the atmosphere prior to the end of their useful lives, he said.

The corporation, which provides technical support for the space industry, had not been in touch with the Chinese side about the re-entry, Thompson said.

China’s foreign and defence ministries said the country had relayed information about Tiangong 1’s return to Earth to the United Nations’ space agency and others.

Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.

Most famously, America’s 77-ton Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwest Australian city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.

Tiangong 1, whose name translates as “Heavenly Palace,” had two modules, one for its solar panels and engines, and one for a pair of astronauts to live in and conduct experiments. A third astronaut slept in the Shenzhou spaceships that docked with the station, which also contained facilities for personal hygiene and food preparation.

China’s space program has made rapid progress since it launched its first crewed mission in 2003 — becoming only the third country after Russia and the U.S. to do so — including placing a rover on Mars and conducting a spacewalk.

A mission to land another rover on Mars and bring back samples is set to launch in 2020, while China also plans to become the first country to soft-land a probe on the far side of the moon.

The program’s military background has at times been a barrier to greater co-operation with those run by other countries, and it was excluded from the 420-ton International Space Station that is now beginning to wind down.

Associated Press writer Gillian Wong contributed to this report. </s> BEIJING — Chinese space authorities say the defunct Tiangong 1 space station mostly burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere over the central South Pacific.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office said the experimental space laboratory re-entered around 8:15 a.m. Monday.

Scientists monitoring the craft’s disintegrating orbit had forecast the craft would mostly burn up and would pose only the slightest of risks to people. Analysis from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center showed it had mostly burned up.

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.

Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

Earlier forecasts had said only about 10 per cent of the bus-sized, 8.5-ton spacecraft would likely survive re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines. </s> Chinese authorities say the Tiangong-1 space station re-entered Earth’s atmosphere Monday, marking an end to the country’s first space lab mission.

The Tiangong-1 made re-entry over the Pacific Ocean around 8:15 a.m. Beijing time (8:15 p.m. Sunday EST), with most of its parts burning up before crashing into the southern Pacific Ocean, the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement.

The space station began its uncontrolled free-fall earlier this year.

The 40-foot, 18,000-lb space lab, whose name means “Heavenly Palace,” was launched in September 2011 with a two-year lifespan to monitor the Earth’s surface temperature, sea ice and vegetation cover, according to the New York Tiangong-1 was also planned as the first step in China’s ambitions to hold a permanent space station in orbit by 2022.

Chinese astronauts have been barred from the U.S.-led International Space Station since 2011 over “national security” concerns. But Beijing sent two crews of taikonauts, or Chinese astronauts, to Tiangong-1 in 2012 and 2013, and landed a rover on the Moon in 2014.

Chinese scientists lost contact with the station in 2016, severing their ability to control its trajectory, and in May 2017, China announced that that the lab had “ceased functioning” in March 2016 and would be allowed to tumble to Earth.

But the loss of Tiangong-1 hasn’t slowed China’s appetite for the stars — it’s successor, Tiangong-2, was launched in September 2016. </s> China’s Tiangong-1 space station, once the size of a school bus, burned up and broke apart as it entered Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday night, Chinese and U.S. aerospace agencies confirmed. Residual pieces of the station landed northwest of Tahiti in the South Pacific and are now likely at the bottom of the ocean.

China launched the Tiangong-1, its first space lab, in 2011 as part of an effort to eventually establish a permanent space station sometime after 2020. Because of a U.S. law barring NASA from communicating with China’s space agency, China was not able to join the International Space Station. Yet the International Space Station could lose funding by 2024, so China may soon be the only country operating one.

The Tiangong-1, which was meant to be a prototype, was host to two missions. Six Chinese astronauts traveled to the station over the course of its five years in orbit, where they conducted experiments, gave lectures to students on Earth, and tested orbital docking maneuvers. Astronauts last visited Tiangong-1 in 2013. The station lost contact with control centers for unknown reasons in 2016, and China later told the U.N. that it had “fulfilled its historic mission.” That same year, the country launched the Tiangong-2 station, another prototype.

What’s notable about the Tiangong-1’s re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere is that it was uncontrolled, according to outside researchers, as China is apparently unable or unwilling to contact it. (China disputed this assessment but offered no evidence to disprove it.) Space agencies typically guide a station’s descent back to earth, like Russia did with its Mir space station in 2001, in order to avoid affecting population centers. However, there was a less than 1 in 1 trillion chance of Tiangong-1 debris hitting anyone, according to the Aerospace Corporation. </s> Chinese space authorities say the defunct Tiangong 1 space station mostly burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere over the central South Pacific.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office said the experimental space laboratory re-entered around 8:15 a.m. Monday.

Scientists monitoring the craft’s disintegrating orbit had forecast the craft would mostly burn up and would pose only the slightest of risks to people. Analysis from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center showed it had mostly burned up.

READ MORE: China’s abandoned Tiangong-1 space lab to make fiery return to Earth within 24 hours

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: Chinese space station set to come crashing to Earth, but your chance of getting crushed is tiny

Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

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. </s> An out-of-control Chinese space station is set to crash to Earth in the early hours of Monday morning - but no one knows exactly where.

The defunct Tiangong-1 ("Heavenly Palace-1") spacecraft is expected to fall to Earth around 2.07am BST, plus or minus two hours.

Much of the 34-ft long, 8.5-tonne module is expected to burn up when it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere, with experts predicting any surviving components such as tanks will land in the sea.

But there's a slight risk fragments of the space laboratory could hit a populated area when it hurtles towards Earth in a wide range that includes southern Europe (not including the UK), the US, most of Asia and South America, Africa, Australia and part of New Zealand.

More than 5bn people live within the re-entry zone - between 43 degrees north and south of the equator - but most of that area is ocean.

China has lost communication with the spacecraft and is unable to control its descent, but has said it's unlikely that any large pieces will reach the ground.

The station was launched in 2011 to carry out docking and orbit experiments under China's ambitious space programme, and was visited by six astronauts.

It was initially supposed to be taken out of service in 2013, but its mission was repeatedly extended.

China's Manned Space Agency had announced the Tiangong-1 would crash to Earth in late 2017, but that process was delayed, leading to speculation that the space laboratory was out of control.

The spacecraft is being tracked by space agencies around the world as it plummets towards Earth.

Richard Crowther, the UK Space Agency's chief engineer, told the BBC: "Given Tiangong-1 has a larger mass and is more robust, as it is pressurised, than many other space objects that return uncontrolled to Earth from space, it is the subject of a number of radar tracking campaigns.

"The majority of the module can be expected to burn up during re-entry heating, with the greatest probability being that any surviving fragments will fall into the sea." </s> China space lab mostly burns up on re-entry in south Pacific

BEIJING (AP) — China's defunct Tiangong 1 space station mostly burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere over the central South Pacific on Monday, Chinese space authorities said.

The experimental space laboratory re-entered around 8:15 a.m. Beijing time, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said.

Scientists monitoring the craft's disintegrating orbit had forecast the craft would mostly burn up and would pose only the slightest of risks to people. Analysis from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center showed it had mostly burned up.

Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at Australian National University, said that Tiangong 1's re-entry was "mostly successful" and that it would have been better if the space station had not been spinning toward Earth.

"It could have been better, obviously, if it wasn't tumbling, but it landed in the Southern Pacific Ocean, and that's kind of where you hope it would land," Tucker said.

"It's been tumbling and spinning for a while, which means that when it really starts to come down it's less predictable about what happens to it," Tucker said. He likened it to an airplane landing, saying it's more difficult to predict where a plane that is "shaking around and moving" will land than one that is smoothly descending.

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.

Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

Earlier forecasts had said that 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 biggest takeaway from this is that as we put more things into space, all countries, we have to be aware that we do have to plan for these sorts of issues that are happening," Tucker said.

Roger Thompson, senior engineering specialist with the Aerospace Corporation in Virginia, said modeling of Tiangong 1's re-entry by monitors in the U.S. had been highly accurate, leaving him feeling "great" about their predictions.

"We believe it was an uncontrolled entry," Thompson said, adding that the corporation's own estimate had been just 15 minutes behind the time announced by China.

The lack of control was not unusual given that about 15 percent of satellites re-enter the atmosphere prior to the end of their useful lives, he said.

The corporation, which provides technical support for the space industry, had not been in touch with the Chinese side about the re-entry, Thompson said.

China's foreign and defense ministries said the country had relayed information about Tiangong 1's return to Earth to the United Nations' space agency and others.

Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.

Most famously, America's 77-ton Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwest Australian city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.

Tiangong 1, whose name translates as "Heavenly Palace," had two modules, one for its solar panels and engines, and one for a pair of astronauts to live in and conduct experiments. A third astronaut slept in the Shenzhou spaceships that docked with the station, which also contained facilities for personal hygiene and food preparation.

China's space program has made rapid progress since it launched its first crewed mission in 2003 — becoming only the third country after Russia and the U.S. to do so — including placing a rover on the moon and conducting a spacewalk.

A mission to land a rover on Mars and bring back samples is set to launch in 2020, while China also plans to become the first country to soft-land a probe on the far side of the moon.

The program's military background has at times been a barrier to greater cooperation with those run by other countries, and it was excluded from the 420-ton International Space Station that is now beginning to wind down.

Associated Press writer Gillian Wong contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show that China has landed a rover on the moon, not Mars. </s> BEIJING >> China’s defunct Tiangong 1 space station mostly burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere Monday over the central South Pacific, Chinese space authorities said.

The experimental space laboratory re-entered around 8:15 a.m. Beijing time, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said.

Scientists monitoring the craft’s disintegrating orbit had forecast the craft would mostly burn up and would pose only the slightest of risks to people. Analysis from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center showed it had mostly burned up.

Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at Australian National University, said that Tiangong 1’s re-entry was “mostly successful” and that it would have been better if the space station had not been spinning toward Earth.

“It could have been better, obviously, if it wasn’t tumbling, but it landed in the Southern Pacific Ocean, and that’s kind of where you hope it would land,” Tucker said.

“It’s been tumbling and spinning for a while, which means that when it really starts to come down it’s less predictable about what happens to it,” Tucker said. He likened it to an airplane landing, saying it’s more difficult to predict where a plane that is “shaking around and moving” will land than one that is smoothly descending.

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.

Since then, it has orbited gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

Earlier forecasts had said that 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 biggest takeaway from this is that as we put more things into space, all countries, we have to be aware that we do have to plan for these sorts of issues that are happening,” Tucker said.

Roger Thompson, senior engineering specialist with the Aerospace Corporation in Virginia, said modeling of Tiangong 1’s re-entry by monitors in the U.S. had been highly accurate, leaving him feeling “great” about their predictions.

“We believe it was an uncontrolled entry,” Thompson said, adding that the corporation’s own estimate had been just 15 minutes behind the time announced by China.

The lack of control was not unusual given that about 15 percent of satellites re-enter the atmosphere prior to the end of their useful lives, he said.

The corporation, which provides technical support for the space industry, had not been in touch with the Chinese side about the re-entry, Thompson said.

China’s foreign and defense ministries said the country had relayed information about Tiangong 1’s return to Earth to the United Nations’ space agency and others.

Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.

Most famously, America’s 77-ton Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwest Australian city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.

Tiangong 1, whose name translates as “Heavenly Palace,” had two modules, one for its solar panels and engines, and one for a pair of astronauts to live in and conduct experiments. A third astronaut slept in the Shenzhou spaceships that docked with the station, which also contained facilities for personal hygiene and food preparation.

China’s space program has made rapid progress since it launched its first crewed mission in 2003 — becoming only the third country after Russia and the U.S. to do so — including placing a rover on Mars and conducting a spacewalk.

A mission to land another rover on Mars and bring back samples is set to launch in 2020, while China also plans to become the first country to soft-land a probe on the far side of the moon.

The program’s military background has at times been a barrier to greater cooperation with those run by other countries, and it was excluded from the 420-ton International Space Station that is now beginning to wind down.

Associated Press writer Gillian Wong contributed to this report.
Chinese space station Tiangong-1 crashes into the South Pacific Ocean near Tahiti.