BEIJING- China’s first prototype space station, the Tiangong-1, is dueto crash to Earth between March 30 and April 2 in an uncontrolled re-entryinto the atmosphere, according to the European Space Agency’s latestprediction.

It settled into an orbit about 217 miles (350 kilometers) above Earthlink>without anyoneaboard.

However, the satellite is not expected to survive re-entry into the Earth’satmosphere and is expected to fall out of orbit in the beginning of April.Mostof Tiangong-1 will break apart and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, but someof the space station’s more solid pieces will probably survive re-entry,experts have said.

A number of cities are within the danger zone, although it is most likelythat the station will hit an ocean or barren land.

Nevertheless, according to US media reports, scientists have warned Spain,Portugal, France and Greece that Tiangong-1 could land within theirborders.

The satellite is currently still orbiting the Earth at 17,500 miles perhour.

Tiangong-1 was designed to stay in space for just two years and theShenzhou-10 visit marked the end of the space lab’s operational life. Afterthat, China put it into “sleep mode” announcing in March 2016 that theTiangong-1 had stopped sending data back to its handlers. So a controlledre-entry was no longer possible.

However, the chances that a piece of Tiangong-1 will hit a person are lessthan 1 in 1 trillion, according to an FAQ published by The AerospaceCorporation.