China's space station back to Earth in 2017

China launched the station Tyangong -1 in 2011

It expected to return the first Chinese space station to the ground in the second half of 2017, amid speculation that the authorities have lost control.

The Tyangong Station-1, or "Heavenly Palace", was launched in 2011, as part of an ambitious Chinese plan to go after the major powers in this area.

But a senior official in the area said that the space lab space "achieved a historic mission in full."

Coherent and the station is still orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 370 kilometers.

The Deputy Director of the Office of Space Engineering, Wu Ping, at a news conference last week: "Based on our calculations and our analysis, most of the parts of the plant will burn during the descent to Earth."

It added that it is unlikely that this affects the activities of the air, or cause any damage on the ground.

But Dr. Jonathan McDowell, a physicist astronomy at Harvard University, says - according to the British newspaper The Guardian reported - that China may have lost control of the station.

"You can not control such things. So you can not even two days before the re-entry, and probably do not know much about it, only six or seven hours, when you take into landing on the ground."

"The lack of knowledge of the time it landed on the ground, which means that we do not know where it will land on the ground."

McDowell commented, saying that most parts of the space station - weighing 8.5 tonnes - will melt as it passes through the atmosphere, but some parts such as rocket engines, may prevent severe intensity burned completely.

China has launched early this month, the second attempt to have a space station, dubbed Tyangong-2, in order to run a fixed center staff by 2022.