Ever since March 16, 2016 when China first reported to the United Nations that their space station, Tiangong-1 “ceased functioning,” the world has been waiting, watching and wondering where on Earth any of its remnants would land. For Tiangong-1’s reentry to Earth’s atmosphere, China’s original plan was to control its descent using thruster burn. At some point near the end of the space station’s mission, China somehow lost control of Tiangong-1 leaving it poised to make an uncontrolled reentry.
Finally, after months of speculations as to when and where, on April 1, 2018 at 5:16pm Pacific Time,天宫一号正式作出了火热再入返回地球。如果所有的这听起来有点熟悉，这是不是第一次下降天宫一号的漏洞已经出现在媒体上。在2013年奥斯卡获奖影片“万有引力”，桑德拉·布洛克扮演谁是她的航天飞机是由空间碎片损坏后使用脱轨天宫一号作为回报车辆地球宇航员。
什么是天宫一号？
Sent into orbit on September 30, 2011, Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace 1,” is China’s first space lab, the prototype for China’s ambitious space program to launch a permanent, 20-ton space station in 2023. Tiangong-1 weighed 8.5 tons, measured 34 feet by 11 feet, and was the approximate size of a school bus. The space station’s initial launch was unmanned, but it had a habitable experimental module to house astronauts. Its primary mission was to perform docking and orbital experiments. Over a five-year period, two successful manned missions by taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) took place, which included China’s first female astronauts, Liu Yang and Wang Yaping.
How did Aerospace Know Tiangong-1’s Time of Reentry?
While there were no movie stars or astronauts aboard the real-life Tiangong-1, its homecoming was nonetheless still of supreme interest to the space industry and the public. The space station kept aerospace agencies and companies worldwide busy trying to estimate the date and time of its return. Tiangong-1’s reentry was being closely monitored by The Aerospace Corporation’s轨道中心一个nd Debris Reentry Studies (CORDS). Established in 1997, CORDS advises government and commercial businesses about space debris and collision avoidance. The organization also monitors the reentry and breakup of space hardware.
这是不容易当一个对象会从太空返回由于多种因素，包括对象的方向，位置，物理性能，速度，空间天气和上层大气的密度要考虑到预测。“我们密切监测数据，并定期进行折返的计算，以保持在空间站的轨道，或将衰减速率的任何变化轨迹，”说Andrew Abraham, a member of Aerospace’s Department of Mission Analysis and Operations team, which tracked Tiangong-1’s journey back to Earth. If bets had been taken on Tiangong-1’s time of reentry, Aerospace would have been a winner since the company estimated that reentry would take place on April 1, 2018, give or take 36 hours.
Was Tiangong-1 a Danger?
天宫一号是从来没有在地球上任何人或任何危险，尽管事实上它是一个腐烂的轨道，这意味着它的高度慢慢朝向地球的下降速度迅速增加减少。当它到达地球的上层大气，空间站做出了不受控制的折返。然而，在折返，最天宫一号的燃烧了起来，由于极端高温和暴力的力量。对象压缩空气在他们之下，因为他们重新进入地球大气层，产生强烈的热。这样高的温度和压力引起的物体破碎，融化，汽化，所以几乎没有留下天宫一号的片段之外地球上真正的土地。
Large space station parts, especially those that are thermally protected like fuel, oxygen, and water containers sometimes survive, but the odds that they will hurt anyone is extremely slim. In fact, Aerospace calculates the odds of space debris hitting a person to be less than one in 1 trillion; you have a better chance of being struck by lightning.
难道天宫一号空间碎片土地地方？
If it did, it landed in the South Pacific Ocean. Timing dictates the location of an object’s reentry, so predicting exactly where it will fall is difficult. Calculations suggested Tiangong-1 would reenter somewhere between the latitudes of 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south. Original estimations of exactly where encompassed a widespread portion of Earth, including the northern U.S., the Middle East, northern Spain, parts of France, Portugal, Greece, central Italy, parts of Chile and Argentina, New Zealand, Tasmania, southern Africa, and northern China. Aerospace predicted that any surviving pieces from Tiangong-1 would fall within a 200-mile radius and be centered along a point on Earth that it was passing over. And since Earth is mostly covered by water, it was very likely that any space debris from Tiangong-1 would probably fall into a body of water which is exactly what happened.
