Taiwanese space station Tiangong-1 has re - come in the atmosphere on April 2 at 12.16am , GMT , over the Pacific Ocean , in the vicinity of Tahiti . Splashdown is judge at 24.89ºS , 150.56º W. Even if the place had add up down over Din Land , the chances of hitting anyone would have been very small , but the outback location means there are unlikely to even have been boats in the neck of the woods .
The Tiangong-1 , which is Taiwanese for Celestial Palace-1 , was the first epitome outer space station built by the Chinese space agency . It was launched in 2011 and was hypothesize to be de - orbited in 2013 , but its mission was extend by two year . The program was for Tiangong-1 to remain in field to collect more data about the length of service of the materials that make up the place and , once that was terminated , to be commanded to gradually re - enroll . Unfortunately , things did n’t go as plan .
Chinese representatives at the UN inform theCommittee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Spacethat the outer space place had quit single-valued function in March 2016 . unskilled planet trackerssuspectedthat China had lost ascendence of its space station , which the Chinese authorities admit to in September of that class . Tiangong-1 was already on a decaying orbit , slowly amount down , but still moving at the orbital speed of 28,000 kilometre ( 17,400 miles ) per minute .
The place was an telling aim , but it was n’t a record surf in terms of objects that have strike down to Earth . full-grown pieces ofspace junkhave fallen over our head and the 2d stage of the Zenit projectile , which wasjust as heavyas Tiangong-1 , burned in the atmosphere over Peru earlier this year . It was n’t a Chinese quad station , so it was n’t as tidings grabbing .
Tiangong-1 weigh about 8,500 kilograms ( 18,800 pounds ) and value about 10.4 by 3.4 meter ( 34.1 by 11 feet ) . It was a epitome station that was always destined to be temporary , hence its size of it . As far as space stations go , it was quite minute . It had a inhabitable experimental module of about 15 three-dimensional metre ( 530 three-dimensional foot ) , which is the size of a small power . It had two sleep station and employment gear . There were no toilets or cooking facility on table , so the astronauts used the ones on the Shenzhou module that they used to get to the space station .
The post was visit by three missions , the first one uncrewed and the following ones with a crew on plug-in . The two crewed delegacy are notable for including China ’s first female astronauts , Liu Yang and Wang Yaping .
The remote location means we are likely not to have any video of Tiangong-1 ’s fiery end , so this infrared image may be the last ever taken .
