China’s Tyangun-1 space station will fall to Earth next month

No, we are not talking about a catastrophe that will lead to the destruction of a city by a station, as they like to show in movies. The station makes a planned descent to Earth, representing a minimal threat to people or buildings. Part of the station will burn in the atmosphere, and the remnants, if they will fall somewhere in a deserted place, are likely to collapse into the ocean.

"Tyangun-1" - the first orbital station of China, which was launched in 2011. With its help, the actions of the Taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) in the conditions of both the station and open space were practiced. It can be said that this orbital station was a “breakdown of the pen”, a test project, after which China would begin the construction of a much better system.

For the entire time of its existence, Tiangun-1 conducted docking with three spacecraft: Shenzhou-8 in November 2011, Shenzhou-9 in June 2012, and Shenzhou-10 in June 2013. By the way, the length of the station is only 10.3 meters. The mass of "Tyangun-1" - 9.4 tons. In March 2016, Chinese scientists have lost contact with this object, and now he is returning to Earth.

Fall will occur on April 3rd. According to experts, the station should almost completely burn in the atmosphere. When this happens, people who will be in sight of the falling station will be able to admire the view of an object burning in the atmosphere, descending with great speed. It will look something like the fall of a meteorite in Bolivia in 2016.


In the atmosphere, "Tyangun-1" can fall apart, which, if not burned completely in the atmosphere, will fall on the ground and water. If this happens, the regions that are directly under the station passing above the Earth will be affected. In the figure below, the “dangerous” zones are marked in green and yellow. Blue marks the zone of zero probability of the station falling. This is about one third of the total area of ​​the planet.



The probability that a station will catch something or someone in a fall is very low, albeit non-zero. Cases when parts of the spacecraft fell when falling into people are known. For example, in 1997, a small part of the Delta II rocket hit the shoulder of an American Lotty Williams, who lives in Oklahoma. This piece of the rocket was so small that Williams almost did not suffer. However, now she is the only person in whom a piece of space debris has fallen.

Over the past half century, a large amount of space debris has burned down in the Earth’s atmosphere - about 5,400 tons. And there were no problems with the fall of something on residential buildings or in other habitats of people, except for the case already described above. In any case, no one claimed the opposite.

Last year, the Chinese launched into orbit their second orbital station, the Tyangun-2 , which was originally a reserve in case something happens to the first station. On board are 14 types of scientific equipment, among which are:

• high-precision cold atomic clocks, the error of which, according to scientists, is one second in 30 million years;
• POLAR high-sensitivity gamma-ray detector, created by scientists from Switzerland, Poland and China;
• medical equipment to study the effects of weightlessness on the human cardiovascular system;
• equipment for conducting an experiment to observe the development of plants in space.

The Chinese space program is very ambitious. The Celestial Empire is going to launch into the Earth’s orbit a large orbital station, on which a whole crew of a spacecraft can simultaneously be located. By 2020 it is planned to send to Mars rover, which will explore both the geological composition of the rocks of the Red Planet and the atmosphere. In addition, the Chinese are developing their own heavy carrier rocket. China has everything you need to run on its territory. This, in particular, the Hainan Cosmodrome - the fourth in a row. It is located 19 degrees north of the equator, which opens up vast possibilities for Chinese specialists.

The cosmodrome will be used to launch heavy space rockets, deep-space research vehicles, launch vehicles for sending space station modules. As for the rocket itself, the Chinese are in no hurry. The creation of a heavy carrier rocket is planned to be completed within 12 years, so such a rocket will go into space no earlier than 2030. At the same time, it will be possible to take about 130 tons of payload (to a low orbit). The main load will be performed by a rocket in the years 2030-2050.