A Chinese spaceport station fell out of the sky today (July 19), according to Agence France-Presse. However unlike the last time this took place, China remained in control the entire time.

The Chinese National Area Administration (CNSA) stated in an earlier declaration that Tiangong-2, the nation’s 2nd speculative station, would “leave orbit and return to the environment.” At 34 feet (10 meters) long and 19,000 pounds. (8,600 kgs), the orbiter was a bit bigger than a northern bottlenose whale– though the station’s photovoltaic panels made it a little bit of an odd-looking whale, with a 60- foot (18 m) wing period. CNSA stated Tiangong-2 would burn up practically completely in the environment, prior to any residues crashed into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo.

That’s a really various circumstance from the death of Tiangong-2’s predecessor, Tiangong-1, which fell unrestrained from orbit on April 1, 2018 (however, coincidentally, Tiangong-1 wound up in almost the exact same part of the Pacific). [Gallery: Tiangong-1, China’s First Space Laboratory]

CNSA authorities stated Tiangong-2 had actually finished all of its experiments and surpassed its scheduled two-year functional life by more than a year. The station hosted just one set of astronauts, back in October and November 2016, however it had actually because hosted a number of robotic objectives, as Live Science sis website Space.com reported

Initially released on Live Science