China's cargo spacecraft re-enters Earth's atmosphere, mostly burns up

China's Tianzhou-2 cargo craft entered the Earth's atmosphere under ground control at 6:40 p.m. Beijing Time, the China Manned Space Agency announced on Thursday.

Most of the spacecraft burned up during the process, while a small amount of the debris fell into the intended area of safe water in the South Pacific, said the agency.

Tianzhou-2 is the first cargo ship sent into space during the construction of China's space station. It carried out a series of extended application tests in orbit.

It was launched into orbit on May 29, 2021, carrying 6.8 tonnes of supplies for the space station.

On March 27, 2022, Tianzhou-2 left the core module of the Tiangong space station after completing all of its scheduled tasks, the agency said.