Chinese space lab completes mission

China's Tiangong II space lab finished its mission on Friday night after a controlled descent back into the atmosphere after a 1,036-day space journey, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The spacecraft reentered the atmosphere at 9:06 pm Beijing time after several orbital maneuvers following control signals from Chinese space authorities.

Much of the spacecraft burned up during reentry while a small amount of debris fell in a designated secure area in the South Pacific, the agency said in a statement, adding that the reentry marked the successful completion of China's space lab program.

Zhu Zongpeng, Tiangong II's chief designer at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing, said that although the spacecraft was still in good condition and had sufficient fuel before reentry, scientists decided to retire it for operational and safety reasons.

The spacecraft had tremendously outlived its designed life span and an extended period in orbit might create new hazards, Zhu said.

Therefore, the country chose to decommission it to honor its obligations as a responsible global space power, the designer added.

Tiangong II was put into orbit in September 2016 atop a Long March 2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert. The space lab was 10.4 meters high, 3.35 meters in diameter and weighed 8.6 metric tons.

More than 1,000 days into its orbit 393 kilometers above the ground, the spacecraft substantially outlived its two-year designed life span and had completed all of its assigned tasks.

During its orbital stay, Tiangong II carried out four dockings with the Shenzhou XI manned spacecraft and Tianzhou 1 cargo spaceship, enabled China to verify a series of key technologies such as midterm life support and in-orbit refueling, and to execute multiple extended experiments, according to the agency.

It carried about 600 kilograms of scientific payloads in 14 categories and fulfilled more than 60 scientific experiments and technological tests, gaining a great deal of achievements.

The agency said the Tiangong II mission had gathered significant experience for the construction and operation of the country's future space station.

Its predecessor, Tiangong I, was launched in September 2011 and was mainly used to test technologies involved in space rendezvous and docking. Tiangong I fell back to Earth in April 2018 in an uncontrolled manner.