China’s space lab may not burn up completely when it falls to Earth in 2017
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.0210122
BBC : Now that the mission of Tiangong 1 has been completed, China says it expects its first space station to reenter and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere sometime next year. However, Jonathan McDowell of Harvard University says it’s possible that some pieces, such as the rocket engines, are so dense that they will not burn up completely and could strike Earth’s surface. China’s deputy director of the manned space engineering office, Wu Ping, has said that if some pieces fail to burn up, they are unlikely to cause significant damage. They will mostly likely land in the ocean or in an uninhabited area. The announcement regarding Tiangong 1 follows several months of speculation that China has lost control of the space station and doesn’t know for sure when or where it will come down.
