China's First Space Station Is 'Out Of Control', And Could Crash Into Earth Any Minute

[adrenalin]

If it falls in the ocean, then it is fine. If it looks like it is going to fall on land, it can be blown up by a missile, or fried by anti-satellite laser. I think PRC has such a laser.

yes, chinise have anti-sat weapon, they tested it and worked. but laser?

 

[pmaitra]

yes, chinise have anti-sat weapon, they tested it and worked. but laser?

Sorry, my bad. It is the anti-sat weapon. It was not a laser, but a projectile.

 

[desicanuk]

Now if this space junk were to fall on one of those mysterious man-made islands...........!!!!

 

[shiphone]

LOL...it's great fun watching the 'debate' and I hate to interrupt ...but a vivid example just in time...

about a week ago...Huge Fireball over Western U.S was spotted and loads of Images and Videos were recorded..


===================
What's that?...this is the Re-entry of the 2nd stage of LongMarch-7 rocket launched one month ago...this is a 15.445 meter long object with a 3.25 meter diameter ...mass : more than 7 tons.

the TianGong-1 Space Lab in obit : 10.4 meter long ,3.25 meter diameter and the weight is much less than 8.5 tons when being launched in 2011 coz the in-orbit fuel consume...

so when TG-1 came to the final destination of its life...if people could observe ,the scene might be the same splendid as this one....lol...but certainly there is no damage to the ground coz all of it would burn out ...

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the 2nd stage of LM-7(CZ-7)

related news report

https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/07/28/re-entering-chinese-rocket-stage-streaks-across-western-u-s/

Re-entering Chinese rocket stage streaks across Western U.S.

A flaming fragment of space junk from China’s newest satellite launcher blazed through Earth’s atmosphere over the Western United States late Wednesday.

Darting across the skies of California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Colorado, the object disintegrated into numerous chunks before disappearing. The relatively slow speed of the fireball — it took nearly a minute to cross the sky — ruled out a natural origin, experts said.
Authorities in the Western United States received dozens of calls Wednesday night and Social Media was a buzz after a long-lasting fireball streaked through the night skies from California to Utah.

Data from the Joint Space Operations Center confirmed the event was caused by the fiery re-entry of a Chinese rocket stage that had spent one month in orbit.

California residents reported seeing the bright object in the skies at 9:36 p.m. local time on Wednesday, 4:36 UTC Thursday and described the event as a slow-moving fireball breaking up in the sky. Videos of the event show the typical characteristics of the re-entry of a man-made object – moving much slower than any natural meteor and breaking up into individual fragments.

The video above was captured by Matt Holt in Utah County, Utah.

The source of the unexpected sky show around 9:40 p.m. PDT Wednesday (12:40 a.m. EDT; 0440 GMT Thursday) was the second stage from China’s Long March 7 rocket, which took off June 25 on its maiden test flight, according to Jonathan McDowell, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks global satellite and launch activity.

A notice issued a few hours later by the Joint Space Operations Center, the U.S. military unit responsible for monitoring space traffic, confirmed the Long March 7’s re-entry over the United States.

McDowell matched the time of the event with the Long March 7 rocket’s orbit, which carried the object from west to east over the Western United States. He said the second stage of the Long March 7 booster initially launched into an orbit ranging between 126 miles (203 kilometers) and 234 miles (378 kilometers) above Earth, but natural drag from the rarefied outer layers of Earth’s atmosphere pulled the uncontrolled rocket to an altitude of less than 90 miles (140 kilometers) by Wednesday.

The U.S. military’s space traffic trackers issued re-entry predictions for the Long March 7 rocket body before Wednesday night’s fall from orbit, but such events are impossible to predict with specificity. Re-entry forecasts usually predict an object will reach the atmosphere some time during multi-hour windows with geographic footprints spanning the globe.

While the exact dimensions for the Long March 7’s second stage have not been published by China’s government, McDowell estimates the rocket segment measures 36 feet (11 meters) long and 11 feet (3.35 meters) in diameter. After consuming its liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants during launch, the rocket fragment’s mass was likely around 13,000 pounds, or 6 metric tons, he told Spaceflight Now via email early Thursday.

and

http://spaceflight101.com/fireball-over-western-u-s-chinese-rocket-debris/

Fireball over Western U.S: Chinese Rocket Debris

Authorities in the Western United States received dozens of calls Wednesday night and Social Media was a buzz after a long-lasting fireball streaked through the night skies from California to Utah.

Data from the Joint Space Operations Center confirmed the event was caused by the fiery re-entry of a Chinese rocket stage that had spent one month in orbit.

California residents reported seeing the bright object in the skies at 9:36 p.m. local time on Wednesday, 4:36 UTC Thursday and described the event as a slow-moving fireball breaking up in the sky. Videos of the event show the typical characteristics of the re-entry of a man-made object – moving much slower than any natural meteor and breaking up into individual fragments.

Reports came from across California, dozens of videos were posted from Las Vegas and sightings were reported as far east as Utah. The fireball was visible for over 30 seconds from most locations.

The object responsible for Wednesday’s light show in the sky was a spent rocket stage from the maiden launch of China’s Long March 7 rocket.

The 53-meter tall rocket lifted off from China’s new Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, Hainan Island on June 25, carrying into orbit a prototype of the country’s Next Generation Crew Vehicle, a group of small satellites and a ballast mass that remained attached to the Yuanzheng-1A Upper Stage that completed a two-day free-flight for experiments ahead of a targeted re-entry.

The second stage of the rocket reached an orbit of 201 by 379 Kilometers at an inclination of 40.8 degrees – beginning a slow descent toward Earth caused by drag due to collisions with atoms and molecules present in the very upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.

By Wednesday 12 UTC, the rocket stage had reached an orbit of 131 by 144 Kilometers.

The second stage of Long March 7 is about 11.5 meters in length, 3.35 meters in diameter and weighs around six metric tons without fuel – making is a sizeable re-entry object. On its business end, the stage hosts a pack of four YF-115 engines that burned over 65 metric tons of Kerosene and Oxygen during the rocket’s climb into Low Earth Orbit.

Rocket stages are relatively light and have a large surface area – comprised of large tank sections and the heavy engine compartment in the aft, causing a more rapid orbital decay compared to satellites that are more compact, offering less surface area for drag to act on.