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Space News

The Chinese Space Station

Crashed into the South Pacific

April 2, 2016

By Lora Snow

The Chinese space station, Tiangon-1, crashed into the South Pacific on April 2 around 00:16 Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), according to the United States’ Joint Force Space Component Command.

This translates to 8:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), 7:16 PM Central Daylight Time (CDT), 6:16 PM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT), and 5:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).

Tiangon-1 crashed near Tahiti, however, instead of into the space graveyard, which is about 2500 miles

Radar image of Tiangon-1 about 170 miles (270 km) above the earth. The main body and solar panels of the space station are visible. Credit: Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Technique

off the coast of New Zealand. The space graveyard is the resting place for 161 spacecraft, including Russia’s MIR station. Spacecraft are guided to this area when possible because it is far from land and is low on shipping traffic.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damages from the Tiangon-1 crash. The likelihood that a piece of the space station would have hit someone was extremely small. The Aerospace Corporation said on their website that “the likelihood of any one person (i.e. YOU) being struck by debris is still far less than winning the Powerball Jackpot.”

The Aerospace Corporation also said that in the history of spaceflight only one person has been recorded as having been hit by a piece of space debris, and she was not injured.

If you do happen to find a piece of it, however, do not touch it or breath in fumes from it. The Aerospace Corporation warned that a highly toxic and corrosive substance called hydrazine may be on the spacecraft and may survive reentry.

Tiangon-1, which means “Heavenly Palace-1” in English, was about the size of a school bus. It was launched into space on September 30, 2011 and has been orbiting the earth from about 220 miles (350 km) above. This is a little lower the International Space Station which orbits the earth from about 250 miles (400 km) above.

There was no one currently aboard the space station when it crashed. Tiangon-1 was designed to work for two years. Its primary mission was to test the docking and rendezvous technologies China would need for a future space station, which in intends to launch by the early 2020's.

This mission was successful. Shenzhou-8, Shenshou-9, and Shenszou-10 successfully docked with the space station, and Shenshou-9, and Shenszou-10 carried three astronauts each and their rendezvous with the space station lasted about two weeks. After the Sgebzhou-10 mission was complete China put Tiangon-1 into “sleep mode.”

China had planned to de-orbit Tiangon-1 in a controlled fashion by using its thrusters to guide it into earth’s atmosphere, but the space station had not communicated with its handlers since March of 2016. As a result the China National Space Administration could not control its eventual crash.

Tiangon-1 is not the first spacecraft to crash to earth in an uncontrolled fashion. Numerous other spacecraft have done this including NASA's space station Skylab. It crashed to earth uncontrolled in 1979. Some of the debris landed in Australia. No one was injured in the crash, but the Australian town Experance fined NASA $400 for littering.