China's TIANGONG-1 space lab to crash to Earth on Sunday, where will it land?

The out-of-control Chinese spaceship Tiangong-1 is expected to re-enter the atmosphere and crash to Earth sometime between Saturday night and Sunday evening, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace”, has been floating uncontrolled since the Chinese space agency lost its control in 2016, five years after its launch.

Earlier on March 26, the ESA had released a map marking in green the probable locations where the out-of-control space lab could crash. Although the prediction map was unspecific, it included Indian region too.

Earlier, the plan was to bring the space lab back to Earth through a controlled final descent and make it land safely somewhere in the world’s oceans, according to the ESA.

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The China Manned Space Engineering Office, in a statement said that Tiangong-1 had stopped sending data and entered its final phase of life on March 16.

“It will mostly burn up due to the extreme heat generated by its high-speed passage through the atmosphere,” it said in a statement.

Scientists and space experts believe that Tiangong could crush anywhere and the exact location can’t be predicted accurately.

The European Space Agency will be providing updates as it better projects when and where the spacecraft tumbles out of space and back to Earth.

The space lab was orbiting at an average height of about 216.2 km and speed of 16,500mph.