The small, abandon Chinese space station that is around the size of the standard school bus maybe falling to Earth later than expected due to calmer space weather, according to the European Space Agency.
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Originally predicting that Tiangong-1 would be arriving to Earth sometime on Sunday, April 1, the agency has stated late Friday night that because of particles from the Sun is not having an impact on space weather, it is now predicting that the old space station will come down between Sunday afternoon, April 1, and early morning Monday, April 2, 2018.
"This means that the density of the upper atmosphere, through which Tiangong-1 is moving, did not increase as predicted (which would have dragged the spacecraft down sooner) and hence the ESA Space Debris Office has adjusted the predicted decay rate," the agency stated in a blog post.
New update for #Tiangong1 reentry: ESA's #SpaceDebris team now forecast a window centred around 23:25 UTC, 1 April (01:25 CEST, 2 April), and running from the afternoon of 1 April to the early morning on 2 April; this remains highly variable https://t.co/vaovwQZBoy pic.twitter.com/7cSYZfhhPo
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) March 31, 2018
The China Manned Space agency also confirmed the later reentry time.
The EPA says it could be anywhere between 43 degrees North or 45 degrees South. The ESA's tracker shows where the Tiangong-1 space station is now and its projected path over the next few hours.
The Tiangong-1, which translates to "heavenly palace," was launched in 2011 as China's first space station. The last crew departed in 2013, and Chinese space authorities lost contact with it in 2016.