China's first space station, the Tiangong-1, is expected to fall back to Earth between March 24th and April 19th 2018. The Aerospace Corporation, a non profit R and D company has been tracking the Tiangong-1. They say the 8.5 ton space craft will likely re enter somewhere, over either the northern United States, parts of South America, northern China, the Middle East, central Italy, northern Spain, New Zealand, the south of Africa, or Tasmania in Australia.
The Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011. Its name means "Heavenly Palace," in English. It is a single module craft that is operated by the China National Space Administration. The Tiangong-1 was used for both maned and unmanned missions. It has been host to two crews of "taikonauts," which is Chinese for astronaut. The final crew of "taikonauts," left the Tiangong-1 in 2013. In 2016, China launched the Tiangong-2 spacecraft.
That same year, China admitted that it had lost control of the Tiangong-1. Jonathan McDowell an astrophysicist from Harvard said, that the Tiangong-1's has been speeding up and that it is now falling at a rate of 6 km a week. He believes that no one will know where it will actually fall until it reaches its final week. The Aerospace Corporation says, "When considering the worst case location... the probability that a specific person (ie, you) will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about a million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot."
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