Since the beginning of the year, landowners have found several pieces of space junk from missions supporting the International Space Station. In each case, engineers expected the expendable hardware would not have survived the intense heat of re-entry to reach the Earth’s surface.
Engineers at the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research center based in El Segundo, Calif., say the accidents underscore the urgency of further study into what happens when a spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere uncontrolled. More objects are being launched into space than ever before, a trend that will continue as companies deploy larger constellations of satellites and heavier rockets.
“What’s most urgently needed now is more research to really understand this whole process and be better prepared to respond more quickly as new materials and new ways of operating emerge,” said Marlon Sorge, executive director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies. “Clearly, that’s the direction spaceflight is heading.”
Ideally, end-of-life satellites and rocket bodies would be guided into a controlled re-entry into the atmosphere far above the ocean, but the extra fuel required for the de-orbit maneuver is often too costly, especially since in many cases the spacecraft don’t even have rocket propulsion systems at all.
In March, a piece of a battery pack ejected from the space station blew a hole in the roof of a Florida home, a rare example of property damage on Earth from space debris. In May, a 90-pound piece of debris from a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft detached from the International Space Station. Falls on the grounds of a “glamping” resort At the same time, a homeowner in a nearby town Small pieces of material This also appears to be from the same Dragon mission.
These events followed the discovery of about 90 pounds of debris from the Dragon capsule on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, in April. NASA and SpaceX subsequently determined that the debris had fallen from orbit in February, and SpaceX employees arrived at the farm earlier this month to retrieve the debris. According to CBC.
Pieces of the Dragon spacecraft also fell in Colorado last year, and in 2022, an Australian farmer discovered remains of the Dragon spacecraft on his land.