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Friday, March 2, 2018

China's Space Lab may fall to Earth in March, 2018

Tiangong-1 was the first space lab built by China and launched in late September, 2011 to help the nation master the technologies needed to construct and operate a crewed space station. China aims to have such a station up by 2020.

The first Chinese orbital docking occurred between Tiangong-1 and an unpiloted Shenzhou spacecraft on 2nd Nov, 2011.  Two crewed missions later visited Tiangong-1. Shenzhou9 and Shenzhou 10 which launched in June 2012 and June 2013.  

The European Space Agency has issued a new re-entry forecast for China's Tiangong-1 Space Lab.   Th space lab weighing 8.5 tons is now expected to fall into Earth's atmosphere between 24th March, 2018 and 19th April, 2018.  The ESA officials say it is a rough estimate.    Re-entry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south ( eg. Spain, France, Portugal, Greece etc) latitude. Areas outside these latitudes can be excluded.  The precise location and time of fall cannot be predicted by ESA..



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