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Old 26-03-2018, 12:59 PM
gary
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Location: Mt. Kuring-Gai
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Tiangong-1 space station uncontrolled re-entry expected March-April 2018

The Tiangong-1 space station will reenter Earth’s atmosphere and substantially burn up in the March–April 2018 timeframe.

Updates here :-
http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2...entry-updates/
and here :-
http://en.cmse.gov.cn/col/col1763/index.html

FAQ here :-
http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2...d-questions-2/

Originally planned to make a controlled re-entry over the Pacific, ground
controllers lost control of the spacecraft in 2016 and it will now make
an uncontrolled re-entry. As at today, that could be anywhere between
42.8 degrees North latitude and 42.8 degrees South - a substantial area
of the Earth's surface.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ESA
Only from one day before the actual reentry will it become possible to roughly predict which ground tracks, and hence which regions on Earth, might witness the reentry.

But even then, an impact location prediction on the order kilometres is, for an uncontrolled reentry, beyond current technical capabilities due to complexities of modelling the atmosphere, the dynamics of the reentering object and limitations in observing the spacecraft.

In general, the uncertainty associated with an uncontrolled reentry prediction is on the order of 20% of the remaining orbital lifetime. Practically, this means that even 7 hours before the actual reentry, the uncertainty on the break-up location is a full orbital revolution – meaning plus or minus thousands of km!
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