The piece of debris that fell through Alejandro Otero’s roof (right) came from a support bracket thrown from the International Space Station.
The owner of a southwest Florida home has formally filed a claim with NASA for damage caused by a piece of space debris that fell through his roof in March.
The lawsuit is unprecedented: apparently no one has filed such a claim against NASA before. How the space agency responds will set a precedent, and that could be important in a world of increasing activity in orbit, with space debris and vehicles increasingly entering the Earth’s atmosphere unchecked.
Alejandro Otero, owner of the Naples, Florida, home struck by the debris, was not home when part of an International Space Station battery pack crashed through his home on March 8. His son Daniel, 19, was at home but escaped injury. NASA has confirmed that the 1.6-kilogram object, made of the metal alloy Inconel, was part of a battery pack that was ejected from the space station in 2021.
An attorney for the Otero family, Mica Nguyen Worthy, told Ars that she has asked NASA for “over $80,000” for uninsured property damage, business interruption damages, emotional and mental anguish damages, and third-party assistance costs . parties.
“We kept it very reasonable on purpose because we didn’t want it to give NASA the impression that my customers are looking for a windfall,” Worthy said.
The family has not filed a lawsuit against NASA, at least not yet. Worthy said she has had productive conversations with NASA legal representatives. She said the Otero family wants to be healed for their losses, but also want to set a precedent for future victims. “This is truly the first legal claim to be made for damages related to space debris,” Worthy said. “NASA’s response, in my view, will be fundamental to how future claims are handled. This really changes the legal landscape.”
Who exactly is liable for space debris?
If space debris from another country — say, the upper stage of a Chinese or Russian rocket — were to hit a family in the United States, victims would be entitled to compensation under the Space Liability Convention, agreed to by the space powers half a century ago . Under this treaty, a launching state is “absolutely” liable to pay compensation for damage caused by its space objects on the Earth’s surface or to aircraft, and liable for damage resulting from errors in space. In an international situation, NASA or another U.S. government agency would negotiate compensation on behalf of the victim.
In this case, however, the debris came from the International Space Station: an old battery pack that NASA was responsible for. NASA completed a multi-year upgrade of the space station’s power system in 2020 by installing a final set of new lithium-ion batteries to replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries that were reaching the end of their lives. During a spacewalk, this battery pack was mounted on a cargo pallet launched by Japan.
Officials originally planned to place pallets containing the old batteries into a series of Japanese supply freighters for controlled, destructive reentry across the ocean. But due to a series of delays, the last cargo pallet containing old batteries missed the ride back to Earth, so NASA jettisoned the batteries for an unguided return to Earth. NASA incorrectly believed that the batteries would burn up completely during reentry through the atmosphere.
Because this case falls outside the Space Liability Convention, there is no mechanism for a U.S. citizen to file claims with the U.S. government for damages resulting from space debris. So for the first time ever, the Otero family files a claim under the Federal Torts Claim Act for falling space debris. This tort allows someone to sue the U.S. government if negligence occurs. In this case, the negligence could be that NASA misjudged the persistence of enough debris to damage property on Earth.
NASA provided the Otero family with a form to file a claim, which Worthy said he did in late May. NASA now has six months to review the claim. The space agency has several options. Legally, it could compensate the Otero family up to $25,000 for each of its claims under the Federal Torts Claim Act (see legal code). If the agency wants to pay full restitution, it will need approval from the U.S. attorney general. Finally, NASA could deny the claims or make an unacceptable settlement offer – in which case the Otero family could file a federal lawsuit in Florida.
Ars has reached out to NASA for comment on the claims and will update this story as soon as we receive one.