China’s space lab: 'returned safely' or 'crashed out of control?'

APD NEWS

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“This kind of re-entry (of Tiangong-1), even if it is an uncontrolled one, will probably not harm anyone,” said Yang Yuguang, a professor at China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation.

Tiangong-1, China’s experimental space lab, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Monday, ending its 7-year orbit around the Earth. Upon arrival, most of the ship was destroyed before hitting the atmosphere above the South Pacific Ocean.

In May 2017,

the Chinese government told the United Nations that the space lab has “ceased functioning” and the space lab’s re-entry could not be controlled as planned.

“Normally speaking, this is very common, as it can be seen from other countries. Years ago, the Salyut Space Station of the former Soviet Union and also the Skylab Station of the US… both are much heavier than Tiangong-1… also had uncontrolled re-entries and didn’t harm anyone,” Yang explained.

Marek Ziebart, professor of Space Geodesy at University College in London agrees with Yang: “The European Space Agency made a statement that the risk of being hurt by Tiangong-1’s descent was about 10 million times smaller than the annual chance of being hit by lightning.”

“The shape of their (space crafts’) trajectory in space is driven by gravity, and we can track these things under the radar. So just because you lose control of this object doesn’t mean you don’t know where it’s going or how it’s going to fly,” Ziebart added.

Some media reports described the re-entry using terms such as “out of control” “crash,” and even “fiery doom,” trying to grab attention and diminish China’s space progress.

“I don’t think ‘crash’ is the right word,” Professor Yang said, “because the trajectory of this kind of uncontrolled spacecraft is quite different from those real crashes, such as the Columbia accident and the Challenger accident. The distance between re-entering the atmosphere and hitting the ground is very long, and most of the debris will be burnt up with no chance of it hitting the ground.”

(CGTN)