Rusty old Satellite spinning out of control and falling down from space into Earth. Big chunk of space debris rotating in orbit around Earth — Courtesy: Shutterstock — Image by: Albert89
NASA claims that space trash from the International Space Station was the metal object that broke through a Florida home last month.
The 1.6-pound object was debris from a cargo pallet that was purposefully launched from the space station three years ago, the agency revealed on Monday.
The pallet, which contained outdated batteries, was intended to burn up harmlessly in Earth’s atmosphere, but one piece made it through and on March 8 crashed onto a house in Naples, Florida.
The incident was initially reported by WINK News, an affiliate of CBS News located in southwest Florida. Alejandro Otero, a resident of Naples, told the publication that the item broke through his house’s two floors and roof. Otero told WINK News that although he wasn’t home at the moment, his son, who was two rooms away, was almost struck by the metal object.
Otero did not answer a request for comment right away.
NASA said in a blog post about the event that it had examined the object at the Florida-based Kennedy Space Center and verified that it was a component of the machinery used to install the batteries on the cargo pallet.
The space debris measures around 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in width, with a roughly cylindrical shape. NASA claimed that after examining the object’s characteristics and metal composition, agency personnel compared it to hardware that had been abandoned from the space station in 2021.
The space station had just installed new lithium-ion batteries at that point, so the outdated nickel hydrogen batteries were being packed up for disposal. NASA reports that when the space station orbited 260 miles above the Earth’s surface, its robotic arm released the 5,800-pound cargo pallet containing the batteries over the Pacific Ocean.
In order to avoid adding to Earth’s space debris problem, space agencies and commercial space businesses frequently dispose of obsolete technology in this way. The space surrounding the planet is already clogged with tens of thousands of such pieces of garbage, in addition to millions of smaller particles of orbital debris. When an object enters the atmosphere, it burns away from space instead of becoming part of the debris field.
Dead satellites, spent rocket parts, and other items burn up entirely in the atmosphere most of the time, but sometimes some fragments make it through the intense heat.
Most land in the ocean. For example, in May 2021, pieces of a 20-ton Chinese rocket fell into the Indian Ocean. China faced backlash for failing to sufficiently monitor its spent rocket stages, and the incident spurred continuing discussions about the responsible disposal of space debris.
Over the Pacific Ocean in February, the European Space Agency observed an uncontrollably falling dead satellite returning to Earth.
A similar scenario arose in 2011 when an uncontrolled re-entry of a bus-sized spacecraft through the atmosphere was handled by NASA. What was left of the defunct satellite fell into a secluded area of the Pacific.
NASA added that in order to ascertain how the object survived the arduous journey through the atmosphere, it would conduct a thorough examination of the most recent debris occurrence.
According to the agency’s blog post, “NASA specialists use engineering models to estimate how objects heat up and break apart during atmospheric re-entry.” “These models are updated frequently when debris is discovered to have survived atmospheric re-entry to the ground, and they require detailed input parameters.”
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Born and raised in South Florida, Krystal is a recent graduate from the University of Miami with professional writing experience at the collegiate and national news outlet levels. She’s a foodie who loves all things travel, the beach, & visiting new places throughout Florida.