The US government tracker – which can be found at Space-Track.org – is still showing the possible re-entry as slightly earlier.

It has a re-entry time at 2.27am UTC on Sunday morning, with a window of three hours either side.

The latest predictions from the Aerospace Corporation are here.

They’ve not changed much; the window has just shifted back by eight minutes.

That means everything is still expected to happen early on Sunday; some time between 11.30am UTC and 7.30am UTC.

The refining of the possible impact time also means that the location can be refined too. Not by much, since the rocket is moving so fast, but by enough to rule out an impact with China:

McDowell also notes that NYC and Elon Musk are out of the impact zone, too. “I apologise to everyone who was hoping for a more dramatic SNL tonight than usual,” he jokes.

The new Aerospace Corporation estimate is out – and puts the potential arrival somewhere between 11.22pm UTC on Saturday, and 7.22am UTC on Sunday.

The trackers at EU Space Surveillance and Tracking have narrowed down their estimate, giving a smaller window that puts a potential fall early in the morning UK time.

There is this caveat from Jonathan McDowell:

The latest data from the Space Force has the rocket dropping just before 3am UTC. It could be six hours before or after that, though, because of the uncertainty.

As ever, that means there’s no real way of knowing where it might land: even a difference of minutes would lead to a vast change in where it would drop down, given the speed it is orbiting.

Here’s the latest from the Associated Press on China’s assurances that the rocket’s arrival will probably be safe:

China says the upper stage of its Long March 5B rocket that launched the core module of its space station will mostly burn up on re-entry, posing little threat to people and property on the ground.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbing said Chinese authorities will release information about the re-entry of the rocket, expected over the weekend, in a “timely manner”.

He said China “pays great attention to the re-entry of the upper stage of the rocket into the atmosphere”.

“As far as I understand, this type of rocket adopts a special technical design, and the vast majority of the devices will be burnt up and destructed during the re-entry process, which has a very low probability of causing harm to aviation activities and the ground,” Mr Wang said.

The largest section of the rocket that launched the main module of China‘s first permanent space station is expected to plunge back to Earth as early as Saturday at an unknown location.

Discarded rocket stages usually re-enter the atmosphere soon after lift-off, normally over water, and do not go into orbit.

China‘s space agency has yet to say whether the main stage of the huge Long March 5B rocket is being controlled or will make an out-of-control descent.

The latest predictions are narrowed even more. The estimate for re-entry is now at 4.19am UTC on Sunday.

But there is still a big window; it could be eight hours before or after that.

(UTC is the same as GMT; add an hour for UK time, or remove four for EST, and so on.)