NASA confirms that its space debris penetrated the roof of a man in Florida

On March 8, a piece of space debris fell through a roof in Naples, Florida, tearing through two floors and (thankfully) Missing The homeowner's son, Alejandro Otero. NASA on Tuesday Certain Results of its analysis of the incident. As expected, it's a piece of equipment that was dropped from the International Space Station (ISS) three years ago.

NASA's investigation of this object at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral confirmed that it was a piece of EP-9 support equipment used to mount the batteries on a charging pad, which was dropped by the International Space Station's robotic arm on March 11, 2021. The nickel batteries were expected to orbit The hydrogen idled around Earth for two to four years (it split the difference, lasting about three years) “before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere,” NASA predicted at the time. not exactly.

Debris puncturing the roof was described as a strut of NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the charging pad. Made of Inconel alloy, the body weighs 1.6 pounds and measures 4 inches long and 1.6 inches in diameter.

Otero Tell He was on vacation when his son told him something went through the roof of their home, Fort Meyers CBS affiliate WINK-TV reported. “I was shaking,” he said. “I was in complete disbelief. What are the odds of something falling on my house with that much force to cause so much damage? I'm so grateful that no one was hurt.”

NASA says it will investigate the disposal and re-entry of the equipment depot to try to figure out why the object crashed into Otero's home instead of disintegrating and erupting into flames. “NASA specialists use engineering models to estimate how objects will heat up and disintegrate as they reenter the atmosphere,” the space agency explained in a press release. “These models require detailed input parameters and are updated regularly when debris is found to have survived re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.”

Most space junk moves very quickly, reaching speeds of up to 18,000 miles per hour. According to To NASA. “Due to the average speed and volume of debris in low-Earth orbit, current and future space services, exploration, and operations pose a risk to the safety of people and property in space and on Earth,” he explains.