China remains silent amid breaking news its Tiangong-1 space station might be in an uncontrolled freefall that will eventually see it destroyed as it burns up in the atmosphere, threatening people and infrastructure on the ground.

Media reports have described the descent of Tiangong-1 as "out of control."

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The Chinese government has yet to issue a statement as to when Tiangong-1 will burn-up and over what part of the Earth its debris will rain down on. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) also hasn't commented on the status of the Tiangong-1 for the past several months.

What is known is that China's Manned Space Engineering Office last March 21 quietly announced that all telemetry with Tiangong-1 had failed, leaving China with no ability to safely control the fall of the 19,000 lbs. space station back to Earth.

"If I am right, China will wait until the last minute to let the world know it has a problem with their space station," said Thomas Dorman, a satellite tracker.

Dorman believes Tiangong-1 could be in a kind of controlled free fall.

"The suggestion has been made (that) the reason China hasn't done re-entry of Tiangong-1 is, the space station is low on fuel, and China is waiting on a natural decay to a much lower orbit before they can do a burn to bring the station down."

"It could be a real bad day if pieces of this came down in a populated area ... but odds are, it will land in the ocean or in an unpopulated area," said Dorman. "But remember -- sometimes, the odds just do not work out, so this may bear watching."

China planned to safely de-orbit Tiangong-1 in 2013 and replace it with Tiangong-2 this September and Tiangong-3 next year. It hasn't explained why this safe de-orbit of Tiangong-1 failed.

Chances are Tiangong-1 will rain whatever's left of it over the Pacific Ocean, probably within the boundaries of the "Spacecraft Cemetery" off the east coast of New Zealand. There is, however, the possibility its debris might smash into populated areas.

China's silence as to where its space station will fall might be setting the stage for a catastrophe.

The fact Chinese authorities have been very quiet about Tiangong-1 might mean the space station is already in freefall, said Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation.

"That would seem to suggest that it's not being de-orbited under control. That's the implication," he noted.

TagsTiangong-1, china, China National Space Administration, re-entry