WASHINGTON — NASA and SpaceX are looking at ways to modify the re-entry process for the Dragon spacecraft to limit the amount of debris that reaches the ground from the spacecraft’s belly.
Remains of Dragon spacecraft fuselage sections have been found on land on several occasions after separating from the capsule before the deorbit burn, including the Crew-1 Crew Dragon fuselage found in Australia in 2022, the Axe-3 Crew Dragon fuselage that fell in Saskatchewan in February, and the Crew-7 fuselage, pieces of which were found in North Carolina in May.
Shortly after Crew-1 wreckage was discovered in Australia in August 2022, SpaceX officials downplayed the incident as an isolated case. “These were all events that were within the scope of our analysis that we expected to happen,” Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director for human spaceflight programs, said at a NASA briefing. “That said, just like with any launch or return, we’re looking at the data very carefully, learning everything we can and always looking for ways to improve.”
Following the recent sighting of the debris, NASA and SpaceX acknowledge that improvements are needed. NASA recently said that initial investigations had predicted that the trunk would have burned up completely upon re-entry. “NASA and SpaceX will continue to explore further solutions as we learn from the discovered debris,” NASA said.
“We did an analysis before Demo-2, and clearly the model is not handling the trunk very well,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said in an interview after the Starliner briefing ahead of the June 6 launch. He believes the composite material used in the trunk is to blame. “It’s almost like a thermal protection system.”
He says the solution NASA and SpaceX are considering is a change to the deorbit procedure: Currently, the trunk detaches before the capsule performs its orbital burn, meaning it can stay in orbit for months before undergoing an uncontrolled re-entry.
Instead, Stich said, engineers are considering performing a deorbit burn and then separating the trunk, which would give them more control over where the trunk re-enters and ensure that any pieces that survive re-entry land in an uninhabited area.
“We’re working on that right now,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have something ready by next year, but we have to do all the proper analysis. We have to make sure it’s safe for the crew.”
Challenges with this alternative approach include using additional propellant to perform the deorbit burn while the trunk is still attached, and figuring out how to most effectively separate the trunk after the burn. Stich said engineers are looking at several ways to move the trunk further away from the capsule on re-entry so that debris falls into the ocean.
Concerns have been raised about the risk of falling debris not only from Dragon’s trunk, but also from part of the ISS battery rack that made an uncontrolled re-entry on March 8. That piece of rack, weighing about three-quarters of a kilogram, survived re-entry and struck a home in Naples, Florida. The debris pierced the roof of the house but no one was injured.
On June 21, the law firm Cranfill Sumner announced that it had filed a lawsuit against NASA for damages caused by the debris, estimated at $80,000. Although some media outlets have mistakenly reported this as a lawsuit, the claim is a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which gives NASA six months to respond to the claim.
Micah Nguyen-Worthy, a lawyer who filed a compensation claim on behalf of families whose homes were damaged, noted that under the Outer Space Treaty, known as the Space Liability Treaty, the United States is “absolutely liable” for damages if debris strikes another country, but the same absolute liability doesn’t apply in this case because the damage occurred on U.S. soil.
“Here, the U.S. government, through NASA, has an opportunity to set a standard – a ‘precedent’ – for what responsible, safe and sustainable space activity should look like,” she said in a statement. Paying compensation, she concluded, “sends a strong message to both other governments and private industry that victims like this should be compensated, regardless of negligence.”
Some people see opportunity in the falling debris: Crew 7’s trunk remains landed at The Glamping Collective, a luxury campground that put the photos on display, saying: “Come and experience this for yourself!” The company’s website states:He noted that the remains will be put on display at the start of a hiking trail.