A chunk of space junk that smashed through a Florida home last month came from the International Space Station, NASA has confirmed.
Back in 2021, NASA controllers in Houston remotely released, via the ISS’s robotic arm, a 5,800-pound cargo pallet packed with “aging nickel-hydride batteries” after a power upgrade to lithium-ion batteries.
Set free about 260 miles above the Pacific Ocean west of Central America, the pallet was designed to orbit Earth for two to four years “before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere” upon reentry, NASA said at the time.
However, a 1.6-pound shard of that did not comply. The 4-inch-high, 1.6-inch-diameter chunk of the metal alloy Inconel made it through the atmosphere, for reasons that are still being investigated, and plunged through a home in Naples, Fla.
The rogue chunk terrified Alejandro Otero and his family. On vacation when the mysterious object hit, Otero rushed home early. He immediately suspected a space object, he told WINK-TV last month.
The object “tore through the roof and went through two floors, Otero posted on X, along with photos.
“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief,” Otero told WINK, noting that his son had been home and could have been hit. “What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage. I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
Hello. Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples.
Tore through the roof and went thru 2 floors. Almost his my son.
Can you please assist with getting NASA to connect with me? I’ve left messages and emails without a response. pic.twitter.com/Yi29f3EwyV— Alejandro Otero (@Alejandro0tero) March 15, 2024
Earlier this month, NASA workers retrieved the object from Otero and analyzed it at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
“Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet,” NASA said in a blog post late Monday. “The International Space Station will perform a detailed investigation of the jettison and re-entry analysis to determine the cause of the debris survival and to update modeling and analysis, as needed.”
With News Wire Services
