NASA finally admitted that a piece of space debris that landed in a Florida man’s home last month came from the International Space Station (ISS).
The object that fell through the roof was a bracket used to secure batteries on a disposal pallet. This pallet was supposed to burn up completely in Earth’s atmosphere. Launched from the ISS in 2021, the pallet remained in orbit until Earth’s gravity pulled it in for destruction.
Surprisingly, the battery bracket didn’t burn up during re-entry and instead crashed through the roof of a Florida house. The image (not shown here) compares the bracket before and after its fiery descent.
NASA says they’ll be analyzing how they currently dispose of garbage to prevent similar incidents in the future. Here’s their statement:
“The International Space Station will be conducting a thorough review of the disposal and re-entry process to identify why the debris survived re-entry. This will allow us to update our models and analyses as necessary. These models rely on specific data points and are constantly updated when debris is found to have survived atmospheric re-entry.”
There’s no news yet on who will cover the damages caused by the space debris in the Florida man’s home.
