China set to deorbit disused Tiangong 2 space lab

Source: Spaceflight Now

China set to deorbit disused Tiangong 2 space lab

July 16, 2019 Stephen Clark

China’s Tiangong 2 space lab, a precursor to the country’s planned space station, is scheduled to fall out of orbit Friday and plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere for a destructive re-entry.

Chinese officials announced the end of Tiangong 2’s mission Saturday. The spacecraft will fire its thrusters to slow its speed and fall out of orbit Friday, targeting a re-entry zone over the South Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Chile, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.

The human-rated space lab hosted two Chinese astronauts on the Shenzhou 11 mission in 2016 for a 29-day stay. The Shenzhou 11 crew, led by commander Jing Haipeng with crewmate Chen Dong, spent more than 32 days in space on the their flight in late 2016, the longest mission to date in China’s human spaceflight program.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office, which oversees the country’s human spaceflight program, said the Tiangong 2 module has completed its experiments orbit. Most of the spacecraft will burn up during the fiery re-entry Friday, but some components could survive and splash down in the remote South Pacific.

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This view of the Tiangong 2 and Shenzhou 11 docked complex was captured Oct. 23, 2016, and downlinked to Earth on Tuesday by the Banxing 2 microsatellite. In this photo, Shenzhou 11 is at the top of the image, and Tiangong 2 is at the bottom of the frame. Credit: CCTV