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The bus-sized space station is predicted to plunge at around 12.10am tomorrow – however the exact timing of the re-entry could vary by up to two-and-a-half-hours.
Andrew Abraham, a member of the The Aerospace Corporation, stated that an estimated “10 percent to 40 percent” of the Tiangong-1 station will survive its descent back to Earth.
He stated: “Our company has the ability to predict space debris if we have a firm idea of the exact composition of the space object.
“Especially ones in which we’re involved with the design.
“But because China doesn’t really send that information, the best we can tell you is between 10 percent and 40 percent of the mass of Tiangong-1 would survive.”
The European Space Agency declared in a recent update that re-entry is likely to take place “from the night of April 1 to the early morning of April 2”.
The orbital speed of the Tiangong-1 is understood to be dependent upon the sun.
If the sun is active, its energy pushes strongly against the atmosphere of Earth, meaning it becomes denser at a higher altitude and could impact the levels of drag against the Tiangong-1’s orbiting speed.
Dieter Isakeit, the chair of the information and communication committee for the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, admitted that tracking exactly when and where the doomed space station will come crashing back down to Earth is incredibly difficult.
“The problem here is less the probability for an aircraft to be directly hit by space debris, but the difficulty to predict precisely the area of possible impacts and their exact time of occurrence, because of uncertainties resulting from variations of solar activity.”
Mr Isakeit added that air traffic control teams could “totally close” large areas off from flying if detailed information about the crash does not emerge.
The Aerospace Corporation has already attempted to calm fears that a single person could be hit by flying debris as the Tiangong-1 re-enters the atmosphere.
They said: “When considering the worst-case location, the probability that a specific person will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot.
“In the history of spaceflight, no known person has ever been harmed by re-entering space debris.”
China lost contact with its 9.4-ton Tiangong-1 station back in 2016.
The Asian superstate declared that it would crash back down to Earth last year but the event was delayed, leading some experts to question whether it was out of control.
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