The first Chinese orbital station "Tiangun-1" will descend from orbit and fall to Earth in the period from March 31 to April 4; according to scientists, this will happen on April 1. As reported by the China National Space Agency, the fall will be uncontrollable and the exact location of the fall can not yet be predicted. According to preliminary data, the fall zone of the station is located between 42.8 degrees north latitude and 42.8 degrees south latitude. This territory includes all of Africa, most of the US, southern Europe, the Middle East and most of East and South-East Asia. In Russia, the fall can occur only in a small part of Dagestan.
At the same time, scientists note that the risks for the planet and for people are minimal. Usually, most of the space devices are destroyed during the passage of dense layers of the atmosphere. At the same time, the most dense parts, such as fuel tanks or rocket engines, may not completely burn out, but their threat to people is also minimal.
"Our experience shows that from 20% to 40% of the initial mass of such large objects can survive after passage of the atmosphere, and then theoretically can be found on Earth," said the head of the ESA space debris monitoring department Holger Krag. "However, the likelihood of injury from one of these fragments is extremely small. I would say that the probability of injury by one of these fragments is comparable to the chance of being struck by lightning twice in one year ". However, the scientist also noted that full information about the fall is not available to him - China does not disclose the entire station.
The launch of the TianGong-1 station was one of the most important parts of the country's space program. The authorities planned that it would be a prototype for the renewed Chinese station, which will be launched in 2022. At first, it was expected that the TianGong-1 would burn in the Earth's atmosphere at the end of 2017, but later forecasts showed that the station would cease to exist in the spring of 2018.
Source: High Tech.