On April 2nd, 2018, at 9:16 a.m. (Korean time), a local space institute said that China's defunct space station broke up over the South Pacific Ocean as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.

▲ The photo of the Tiangong-1 before it fell

The state-run Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute said that the Tiangong-1 disintegrated at an area around 195.7 degrees west, 13.6 degrees south, off the coast of Chile. Because of the Tiangong-1's large orbit, South Korea was also one of the possible places where its debris could fall, but fortunately, no accidents occurred.

▲ The area of the Tiangong-1 potential re-entry

Meanwhile, according to original plans, the Tiangong-1 must be fallen in 2013, but by a lot of efforts from China, it could act more in space around three years. However, in September 2016, because of sudden problems of its machine and technique, China could not control the Tiangong-1. So, unlike common satellites that fall in the ocean where nobody lives after their life expectancy, the Tiangong-1 had some possibilities that could fall in the cities where many people live. Luckily, it fell in the ocean where no one lived without any debris which is less burnt down, so there were no people got hurt.

▲ The photo of the Tiangong-1 disintegrated

China is being evaluated a little bad by other countries because China did not provide any detailed information about the Tiangong-1's problems. With this event, other countries, as well as China, need to pay more attention to whether their satellites or important equipment related to space work well or not. Also, if some problems appear to them, their countries should provide exact and detailed information about them.

By Kim Hyeon