Space junk crash-landed in an upscale North Carolina location.
A landscaping crew working at The Glamping Collective, a mountaintop resort near Asheville in Haywood County, found a large mysterious object on May 22 that NASA confirmed was part of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule that arrived at the International Station Space (ISS) in 2023.
A large piece — about the size of a standard car hood and covered in carbon fiber — was found on a hiking trail, and several other smaller pieces fell into the yards of nearby homes, according to a report by Space. com.
The objects were from the “Dragon spacecraft trunk facility” that was “predicted to be completely burned out,” ABC 13 in North Carolina reported.
SPACE TRASH BLOWS THROUGH FAMILY’S HOME IN FLORIDA
Debris from SpaceX was found along a trail at the luxury North Carolina mountaintop resort on May 22. (The Glamping Collective)
Other parts of SpaceX funded by Elon MuskS ‘ The capsule was found in Canada in February and more recently in Saudi Arabia around the time the North Carolina piece was found, NASA said in its statement.
“NASA is not aware of any structural damage or injury resulting from these findings,” the space agency said in its statement.
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A Florida family had a similar, though much scarier, encounter with space debris that didn’t burn up as expected.
In March, a 1.6-kilogram metal alloy object dug into the roof and two stories of a home in Naples, Florida, while a family member was inside.
Homeowner Alejandro Otero told X that she, “Got over the roof and went through (sic) 2 floors. Almost my son (sic) his.”
Spear recovered from NASA flight support equipment used to mount International Space Station batteries on a cargo pallet. The stick survived re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024, and struck a house in Naples, Florida. (NASA)
Space debris found on a trail of a luxury mountaintop resort in North Carolina is the size of a car hood. (The Glamping Collective)
The Glamping Collective resort in North Carolina lit up at night. (The Glamping Collective)
Like the object that crashed in North Carolina, the object that hit the Otero family home was supposed to “heat up and explode during atmospheric re-entry,” NASA told Fox News Digital in an earlier email.
No one was hurt in either situation, but Otero family attorney Mica Nguyen Worthy said, “A near miss like this could have been catastrophic.
“Space debris is a real and serious issue due to the increase in space traffic in recent years,” Worthy said.
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NASA said it is conducting a “detailed investigation of the ejection and reentry analysis to determine the cause of the debris’ survival and to update the modeling and analysis.”
“NASA remains committed to operating responsibly in low Earth orbit and mitigating as much risk as possible to protect people on Earth when space hardware must be launched.”
In this Saturday, April 24, 2021 photo released by NASA, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule approaches the International Space Station for docking. (NASA via AP)
Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon are very different rockets. (NASA)
To drive home Worthy’s point, a malfunctioning Russian satellite exploded near the ISS last week, prompting a brief discussion during Friday’s teleconference with NASA and Boeing officials.
The teleconference with reporters focused primarily on Starliner’s helium leaks and faulty thrusters, but officials expressed little concern that debris from the satellite would reach Earth.
The threat was averted after the pieces missed the ISS.
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The resort marketed the space junk as an attraction.
“We invite you to come experience it for yourself! Starting Monday, June 3,” the resort said on its website. “We will have space debris on display for your viewing at the start of our Sunset Summit Trail!”
The Florida family took a tougher approach to the object that hit their home.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule on launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on November 9, 2021 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“An aurora stream below Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft docked in the forward port on the Harmony module as the International Space Station rose 266 miles above the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia,” according to NASA. (NASA/Matt Dominick)
Worthy filed a petition with NASA on behalf of the Otero family and said this is an opportunity for NASA to “set a precedent for what responsible, safe and sustainable space operations should look like.”
“If the incident had occurred overseas and someone in another country had been harmed by the same space debris as in the Otero case, the US would have been absolutely responsible for paying for those damages.”
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She asked NASA and the US government to follow the same legal principle.
NASA declined to comment on pending legal action.