8 tonne disabled Chinese space lab likely to crash to Earth in coming months

An 8 tonne, defunct, yacht-sized Chinese space lab is expected to fall out of orbit and crash to Earth in the coming months.

Tiangong-1 satellite was launched by China in 2011. Tiangong means "Heavenly Palace" in Chinese. The satellite, which is 12 metres long and 3.3 metres in diameter, was designed to test technology for a future space station. The Chinese space program used it for a series of spacecraft docking tests and visits from astronauts.

The space lab broke down and stopped functioning in March 2016 which leaves China's space agency without control of it.

Chinese officials told the UN secretary general in May 2017 that Tiangong-1 was expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere between October 2017 and April 2018.When it does crash, China says the risk that it will cause any damage or injury to aircraft or people or things on the ground is "very low" since most of it will burn up in the atmosphere as it falls.