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>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>Where will it land?

No one knows for sure. However, on Friday, before updating the latest time window, the Aerospace Corp. said the debris would most likely descend into the Pacific Ocean.

When the space station’s fall was forecast for noon EDT on Sunday (Aerospace has since moved its forecast back four and a half hours), an expert told Space.com that Tiangong-1 would likely begin its re-entry over Malaysia, and rain debris into the Pacific Ocean.

Earlier, the Aerospace Corp. also said it could land along a strip of the U.S. that includes the southern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. That promted Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to activate the state’s Emergency Operations Center to monitor the station.

Capt. Chris A. Kelenske, Michigan’s deputy director of emergency management and homeland security, said “the chances are slim that any of the debris will land in Michigan, but the state is monitoring the situation and is prepared to respond quickly if it does.”

What will happen and how great is the danger?

The European Space Agency predicts the station will re-enter the atmosphere Sunday evening – an estimate it still calls “highly variable,” likely because the ever-changing shape of the upper atmosphere affects the speed of objects falling into it.

Western space experts say they believe 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 is doing to guide the craft’s re-entry.

Based on Tiangong 1’s orbit, it will come to Earth somewhere between latitudes of 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, or roughly somewhere over most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America. Out of range are Russia, Canada and northern Europe.

Based on its size, only about 10 percent of the spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines. The chances of anyone person on Earth being hit by debris is considered less than one in a trillion.

“This is a big thing the size of a school bus. Most of the stuff in it will just burn up in the atmosphere,” Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, curator of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, told CBS New York.

Ren Guoqiang, China’s defense ministry spokesman, told reporters Thursday that Beijing has been briefing the United Nations and the international community about Tiangong 1’s re-entry through multiple channels.

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 southwestern Australia city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.

The breakup on re-entry of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003 killed all seven astronauts and sent more than 80,000 pieces of debris raining down on a large swath of the Southern United States. No one on the ground was injured.

In 2011, NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was considered to pose a slight risk to the public when it came down to Earth 20 years after its launching. Debris from the 6-ton satellite ended up falling into the Pacific Ocean, causing no damage.

China’s own space program raised major concerns after it used a missile to destroy an out-of-service Chinese satellite in 2007, creating a large and potentially dangerous cloud of debris.

What is Tiangong-1 and what was it used for?

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, whose name translates as “Heavenly Palace,” played host to two crewed missions that included China’s first female astronauts 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. Since then it has been orbiting gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

The station 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.

Since China conducted its first crewed mission in 2003 – becoming only the third country after Russia and the U.S. to do so – it has taken on increasingly ambitious projects, including staging a spacewalk and landing its Jade Rabbit rover on the moon.

China now operates the Tiangong 2 precursor space station facility, while the permanent station’s 20-ton core module is due to be launched this year. The completed 60-ton station is set to come into full service in 2022 and operate for at least a decade.

China was excluded from the 420-ton International Space Station mainly due to U.S. legislation barring such cooperation and concerns over the Chinese space program’s strong military connections. China’s space program remains highly secretive and some experts have complained that a lack of information about Tiangong 1’s design has made it harder to predict what might happen upon its re-entry.

A mission to land another rover on Mars and bring back samples is set to launch in 2020. China also plans to become the first country to soft-land a probe on the far side of the moon.</s>“We won’t have a firm idea of precisely when — or any clue of where — until several hours prior to reentry,” he said. “There’s still a fair amount of uncertainty.”

Here’s everything you need to know about Tiangong-1 and its impending fall.

Tiangong-1, which translates to “Heavenly Palace,” was launched in 2011 as a prototype space station. China sent two crewed missions to the outpost while it was still operational, but the space station has hosted no astronauts since 2013.

In a 2017 update to the United Nations, China said Tiangong-1 had “ceased functioning.” It is assumed that China is unable to control or communicate with the station, though Chinese officials have not confirmed that.

Why is it difficult to predict when the station will fall?

Tinagong-1’s orbit has long been decaying — meaning that Earth’s gravity draws it a bit closer with each orbit it makes around our planet. As it draws nearer, it bumps into more and more air molecules, which slow the station and cause its orbit to decay even more precipitously. This drag force depends in part upon Tiangong-1’s position and whether the station is tumbling, which is hard to know for sure. And the density of the upper atmosphere fluctuates from one day to the next, Abraham said, which affects how much drag is exerted on the falling space station.

Where could the space station fall?

Based on Tiangong-1’s orbit, researchers say the space station will reenter the atmosphere between 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South latitude. It will be impossible to narrow down the location until a couple of hours prior to reentry.

Although there are several major cities within the possible landing zone, including Los Angeles and Houston, debris from the station is likely to plunge in the ocean or on unpopulated land. “It’s more likely than not that this thing will reenter over an unpopulated area and it may be that no on ever sees it,” Abraham said.

Am I in any danger?

According to Aerospace, “the probability that a specific person (i.e., you) will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot."

Only one person — Lottie Williams of Tulsa, Oklahoma — is known to have been hit by space debris falling to Earth. Williams was struck on the shoulder by a small piece of a rocket’s fuel tank in 1997 while out for a walk. She was uninjured.

Will I be able to see anything?

It might be possible to see streaks across the sky — similar to a meteor shower — at the time of reentry. But that depends, of course, on how close you are to the falling debris as well as the time of day and the amount of cloud cover, according to Abraham.

Is it uncommon for a spacecraft to fall to Earth?

It’s not at all uncommon for rocket parts, old satellites, and other bits of space debris to fall to Earth. To date, the largest structure to plummet through the atmosphere was the 268,000-pound Russian Mir space station, which made a controlled descent and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean in March 2001.</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.</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>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>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.
Chinese space station Tiangong-1 crashes into the South Pacific Ocean near Tahiti.