Chinese space station burns over South Pacific

China's Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the earth's atmosphere and burnt up over the middle of the South Pacific on Monday, China's News Agency, Xinhua, has reported.

"The space lab re-entered the Earth's atmosphere at around 8:15 am local time (12:15 am GMT) and was mostly burnt up in the atmosphere," Xinhua quoted the China Manned Space Engineering Office, CMSEO, as saying.

Launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China on 29th September, 2011, Tiangong-1 was tasked to test the technologies in rendezvous and docking between spacecraft and to accumulate experience for developing a space station, Xinhua added.

[Image caption: In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, China's Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft moves towards the Tiangong-2 space lab for docking, as seen on a screen at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, Saturday, April 22, 2017. China launched its first unmanned cargo spacecraft Thursday on a mission to dock with the country's space station.

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