Chinese Space Lab May Fall to Earth This Month

rgMekanic

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The European Space Agency has been monitoring China's Tiangong-1 space lab, and has issued a new re-entry forecast according to a report from Fox News. The 8.5-ton spacecraft is expected to fall into Earth's atmosphere between March 24th and April 19th, somewhere around Spain or France.

Seems a little odd to me that they can't predict when it will fall into the atmosphere with a little more accuracy than nearly a month window. The ESA even stated "At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible."

The first Chinese orbital docking occurred between Tiangong-1 and an unpiloted Shenzhou spacecraft on Nov. 2, 2011. Two crewed missions later visited Tiangong-1: Shenzhou 9 and Shenzhou 10, which launched in June 2012 and June 2013, respectively.
 
Seems a little odd to me that they can't predict when it will fall into the atmosphere with a little more accuracy than nearly a month window. The ESA even stated "At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible."


Simple, they don't want a mass panic.
 
What happens if this thing barrels into an historical monument in Spain or France or much worse a crowd of people? Wouldn't that be grounds of a form of attack from China in some respects. LOL!
 
Seems a little odd to me that they can't predict when it will fall into the atmosphere with a little more accuracy than nearly a month window. The ESA even stated "At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible."
We can only just predict the Earth's weather. You think we can precisely forecast the sun's fluctuations, which drive the solar wind, which excites the upper atmosphere, effecting variations in the drag on satellites in LEO?
 
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We can only just predict the Earth's weather. You think we can precisely forecast the sun's fluctuations, which drive the solar wind, which excites the upper atmosphere, effecting variations in the drag on satellites in LEO?

Well, seeing as we can put damn near anything we want into space with an incredible degree of accuracy, as well as precisely hit a satellite moving at 18,000 MPH with a missle launched nearly 250 miles away, I think a little shorter than nearly a month window should be attainable.
 
Well, seeing as we can put damn near anything we want into space with an incredible degree of accuracy, as well as precisely hit a satellite moving at 18,000 MPH with a missle launched nearly 250 miles away, I think a little shorter than nearly a month window should be attainable.

It's not. Intrinsic variability in too many variables at play here. Even Chinese manufacturing practices, lol.
 
Paging the NASA and physics geeks... Why don't we shove outdated equipment like this towards Mars? We'll eventually need the resources - I would think anyway. Logistics not worth it?

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somewhere around Spain or France.

We're also missing a potential opportunity here to drop it on fat ass in NOKO. Who they gonna attack? China? Who the hell am I kidding, they'd bomb Seoul anyway.
 
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We can only just predict the Earth's weather


we do not have the ability to "predict" the weather. instead what we do is to feed the current weather conditions into a massive computer which has the records of many years past. It then looks for trends similar in history as to whats happening now and then spits out the results of what happened AFTER. Local weather people may then take the overall output and tweak it to more accurately reflect local trends.

so we are not "predicting", we are just referencing past trends that closely match the current.
 
Paging the NASA and physics geeks... Why don't we shove outdated equipment like this towards Mars? We'll eventually need the resources - I would think anyway. Logistics not worth it?

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We're also missing a potential opportunity here to drop it on fat ass in NOKO. Who they gonna attack? China? Who the hell am I kidding, they'd bomb Seoul anyway.


You are talking a metric shit tonne of cash to boost what is basically trash towards Mars. the space station weighs around 18,000 pounds, guessing at around $3K or $4K per pound to boost to Mars, (it's already in low earth orbit, so saving some money there) it would be at minimum $50,000,000 to boost a massive pile of scap to Mars that would odds are never be used.
 
Paging the NASA and physics geeks... Why don't we shove outdated equipment like this towards Mars? We'll eventually need the resources - I would think anyway. Logistics not worth it?

edit:



We're also missing a potential opportunity here to drop it on fat ass in NOKO. Who they gonna attack? China? Who the hell am I kidding, they'd bomb Seoul anyway.
Either solution I'd going to involve sending something up capable of attaching to the station and then have sufficient thrust to either accelerate it out of Earth's gravity well, or deaccelerate it to drop it out of orbit where we want it to land. In the event we send it towards Mars, you need additional capability to brake it in order for Mars to capture in a stable orbit.
 
What happens if this thing barrels into an historical monument in Spain or France or much worse a crowd of people? Wouldn't that be grounds of a form of attack from China in some respects. LOL!
It's going to burn to next to nothing
 
What happens if this thing barrels into an historical monument in Spain or France or much worse a crowd of people? Wouldn't that be grounds of a form of attack from China in some respects. LOL!

Sorry, but that station would never touch the ground. Re-entry burn and all that
 
If you don't know when, you don't know where. So to say Spain / France is bullshit, unless they know when to better than a day's precision.
 
I've read some pretty big chunks can make it to the ground from orbit - at least with something this big.

The edge of the upper atmosphere is not fixed. Depending on lots of things it can increase drag or not. Solar Winds, Solar Flare, earth weather, radiation, the gravitational field of the earth is not even either - going over a mountain vs the ocean etc make a difference.

I have no doubts many other factors I have not read about also affect orbiting objects.
 
I hope it lands in my yard - there'd be suckers willing to pay for it or pay to see it.
 
I call crap. Models for decaying orbits on farms should be able to tighten up that projection.

We can whip a probe around planets and moons with modeling.

But now I hear weather is a factor.................. More like our new metal tarrifs.
 
Seems a little odd to me that they can't predict when it will fall into the atmosphere with a little more accuracy than nearly a month window. The ESA even stated "At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible."

I find it odd that they dont know when it will fall, but they know kind of where. Was it in geosynchronous orbit? If it was orbiting I would expect it could fall anywhere along that parallel.
 
I've read some pretty big chunks can make it to the ground from orbit - at least with something this big.

The edge of the upper atmosphere is not fixed. Depending on lots of things it can increase drag or not. Solar Winds, Solar Flare, earth weather, radiation, the gravitational field of the earth is not even either - going over a mountain vs the ocean etc make a difference.

I have no doubts many other factors I have not read about also affect orbiting objects.
I think this is part of the problem.

I'm betting the other part of the problem is this object is going fast enough and losing altitude at a slow enough rate that there's a chance it may skip along the atmosphere like a stone skipped along the surface of a pond.
 
A large part of the problem is unlike NASA with Skylab or Russian with MIR, the Chinese have no comms with or control of Tiangong-1. NASA and Russia were able to change the attitude of their respective stations to modify when and where they came down. IIRC - Russia used an automated space tug to time their de-orbit burn. Tiangong-1 is just a piece of likely slowly tumbling junk. End on = low drag, sideways = high drag. With no control or even telemetry, no way to calculate drag and the resulting deceleration. Add in the space weather variations and it does become a bit difficult to predict an impact zone. Very likely things like docking rings and pressure hatches will survive re-entry.
 
You never know if that glowing hunk of whatever that just blew a whole in your home is toxic, radioactive (strongly) or just hot. It is best to let hazmat check first.

You can bet governments are going to pull eminent domain too.

Make all the claims you want till uncle Sam says its dangerous or a matter of national security.
 
When sending probes out into the solar system we do calculate the path ahead of time, yes, then we do a lot of course corrections.

I have read with probes and satellites both the end of useful life is when they run out of reaction mass.

We use the big computers to figure the smallest effective burns.
 
Fook Mi ! I wonder if my life insurance would cover this? Or what if it hits some countries military base or government building. This could be the plot of a great, terrible movie!
 
Fook Mi ! I wonder if my life insurance would cover this? Or what if it hits some countries military base or government building. This could be the plot of a great, terrible movie!

Are you in the projected impact zone?

Do you plan on becoming the next 'Toilet Seat Girl?"

This isnt the first space station to come down (SkyLab + others) odds of a person getting hit are low but not that low.
 
Are you in the projected impact zone?

Do you plan on becoming the next 'Toilet Seat Girl?"

This isnt the first space station to come down (SkyLab + others) odds of a person getting hit are low but not that low.


You have better odds of winning the lottery. Chances of any one individual being hit? one in several trillion. source: NASA

chance of someone on earth being hit, 1:3200
 
ZOMG this infuriates me to no end! How TF are they gonna predict where it will land? SCI FI?! The Earth spins, winds, velocity, physics all that shit. We can accurately predict shit falling from space but not todays weather? GTFO, I swear all these "Science Space BUFFS" are Larpers, fuck off.
 
ZOMG this infuriates me to no end! How TF are they gonna predict where it will land? SCI FI?! The Earth spins, winds, velocity, physics all that shit. We can accurately predict shit falling from space but not todays weather? GTFO, I swear all these "Science Space BUFFS" are Larpers, fuck off.

Get off the drugs son, and then move out of your momma's basement.
 
A large part of the problem is unlike NASA with Skylab or Russian with MIR, the Chinese have no comms with or control of Tiangong-1. NASA and Russia were able to change the attitude of their respective stations to modify when and where they came down. IIRC - Russia used an automated space tug to time their de-orbit burn. Tiangong-1 is just a piece of likely slowly tumbling junk. End on = low drag, sideways = high drag. With no control or even telemetry, no way to calculate drag and the resulting deceleration. Add in the space weather variations and it does become a bit difficult to predict an impact zone. Very likely things like docking rings and pressure hatches will survive re-entry.


and thats the real issue here. We usually have a plan in place to deorbit something so we know where it is going, mid ocean usually.

here, its anyones guess.

now it would be "funny" if it came back down into say.. Beijing
 
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