[29] A couple of months later, amateur satellite trackers watching Tiangong-1 found that China's space agency had lost control of the station.

[30][31] According to the China Manned Space Engineering Office, Tiangong-1 started reentry over the southern Pacific Ocean, northwest of Tahiti, on 2 April 2018 at 00:16 UTC.

[4][5][16][17] The China National Space Administration (CNSA) designed Tiangong-1 as an 8,500 kg (18,700 lb) "space-laboratory module", capable of supporting the docking of crewed and autonomous spacecraft.

[32] On 29 September 2008, Zhang Jianqi (張建啟), vice-director of the CMSEO, declared in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV)[33] that Tiangong-1 would be launched in 2010 or 2011.

[7] High-resolution interior cameras allowed crewed missions to be closely monitored from the ground, and the two sleep stations had individual lighting controls.

[38] Toilet facilities and cooking equipment for the crewed missions were provided by the docked Shenzhou (spacecraft), rather than being integrated into the Tiangong module itself.

[39] Chinese television broadcast the launch animation accompanied by an instrumental version of the American patriotic song America the Beautiful, a choice of music for which it later offered no explanation.

[50] In December 2011, the Tiangong-1 module began automated internal checks for toxic gas, to ensure that its interior would be safe for astronauts to enter.

[51] In January 2012, reports emerged in British publication Spaceflight alleging that the American Boeing X-37B robotic spaceplane was shadowing Tiangong-1 for surveillance purposes.

Niu Hongguang, the deputy chief commander of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, stated that Shenzhou 9 would dock with Tiangong-1 before August 2012.

[23][24][62] The launch of Shenzhou 10 was originally planned for earlier in the year, but was delayed to allow the mission to incorporate more complex scientific experiments.

[64] On 20 June 2013, Wang Yaping delivered a remote video lecture from orbit to students across China, demonstrating physics in microgravity with her colleagues.

It was intended that it would remain in orbit for some time, allowing China to collect data on the longevity of key components before being commanded to gradually re-enter the atmosphere.

[70] One week later on 21 March 2016, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced that they had officially disabled data service and ended the mission.

[72] Independently, the non-profit Aerospace Corporation's Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies (CORDS) predicted that Tiangong-1 would most likely re-enter the atmosphere around 00:30 UTC on 2 April 2018, plus or minus 1.7 hours.

CORDS scientists also predicted that it would re-enter somewhere between the 42.7° North and 42.7° South latitudes, a range that covered two-thirds of the Earth's surface, with a high likelihood of an ocean landing of whatever did not burn up during re-entry.

[79] They predicted that if any parts of the station survived re-entry, the small amount of debris would impact the ground over an area a few hundred square kilometers in size.

[80] The final prediction of likely areas for debris impact covered southern South America, Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia.