China’s Rogue Space Station Tiangong-1 Crashes Over South Pacific

A photo of the giant screen at the Jiuquan space center shows the Tiangong-1 module via a camera in the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft before a docking on July 18, 2012. STR/AFP/GettyImages

SHANGHAI—China’s Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the earth’s atmosphere and mostly burnt up over the middle of the South Pacific near Tahiti on Monday, the Chinese space authority said.

The craft re-entered the atmosphere around 8:15 a.m. Beijing time and the “vast majority” of it had burnt up upon re-entry, the authority said in a brief statement on its website.