NASA’s 5,800 pounds of space junk was supposed to orbit Earth for a few years, then “burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere.”
It didn’t go as planned, and Florida Family An unexpected delivery was received from the International Space Station on March 8.
According to the law firm representing the family, the 1.6-pound metal alloy object “tore a large hole from the ceiling to the floor” of the Otero family’s Naples home while their son was inside.
No one was hurt in the incident, but the family’s attorney, Micah Nguyen Worthy, said “a ‘near-miss’ situation like this could have been catastrophic.”
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“A stanchion recovered from NASA’s flight support equipment used to mount International Space Station batteries to a cargo pallet. The stanchion survived re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024 and struck a home in Naples, Florida,” NASA said. (NASA)
An external pallet filled with old nickel-hydrogen batteries was supposed to burn up “harmlessly” in Earth’s atmosphere, but that didn’t happen, according to NASA. (NASA)
NASA said on March 11, 2021, that the International Space Station “dropped an external pallet filled with old nickel-hydrogen batteries to a station orbiting 260 miles above the Pacific Ocean west of Central America.”
The remains of the batteries that power the space station burned into an object about four inches high and 1.6 inches in diameter, NASA said in an April 15 press release.
It was expected to orbit Earth for two to four years, after which it would burn up in the atmosphere “without causing any harm”.
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View of the International Space Station taken after the crew of the Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft undocked on March 30, 2022. (Roscosmos State Space Corporation, by AP, File)
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell posted on X Space trash Detailed information has been given about this spacecraft entering the Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, its projected path and the possibility of it hitting Fort Myers.
“Looks like one of these pieces missed Fort Myers and hit my house in Naples,” Alejandro Otero responded, showing photos of the damage and the object. “Ripped off the roof and went through 2 floors. Almost got hit by my son.”
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Otero’s posts on X have now been deleted.
NASA did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, but Otero’s attorney responded in an email.
This illustration provided by Johns Hopkins APL and NASA shows NASA’s DART probe (foreground right) and the Italian Space Agency’s LICACUBE (bottom right) in the Didymos system prior to its collision with the asteroid Dimorphos (left). (Steve Gribbon/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA via AP)
He clarified that no lawsuit has taken place yet and hoped it would not reach that stage.
“We presented NASA’s claim “If NASA is unable to resolve the Oteros’ claims to their satisfaction, they will have the right to consider filing a lawsuit in federal court,” he said.
According to Worthy, this is an opportunity for NASA to “set an example of what responsible, safe and sustainable space operations should be like.”
“Space debris is a real and serious issue as space traffic has increased in recent years,” the lawyer said.
“If this incident had occurred overseas, and someone in another country had been harmed by space debris as in the Oteros case, the U.S. would be fully responsible for paying for that damage.”
He also urged NASA and the US government to follow the same legal principle.
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The fragments that fell on Otero’s home were analyzed at the space agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
According to NASA, NASA experts use engineering models to predict how objects “heat up and break up during re-entry into the atmosphere.”
These models are “regularly updated” following situations where debris survives re-entry and falls to the ground.
“The International Space Station will conduct a detailed investigation of the jettison and re-entry analysis to determine the cause of the debris’ survivability and to update modeling and analysis as needed,” NASA said April 15.
“NASA is committed to operating responsibly in low Earth orbit and minimizing as much risk as possible to the safety of people on Earth when space hardware is released.”
