WASHINGTON — NASA and SpaceX are exploring how to adjust the Dragon spacecraft’s reentry process to limit the amount of debris from the spacecraft’s fuselage that reaches the ground.
On several occasions, debris from fuselage parts of the Dragon spacecraft, which were ejected from the capsule before the capsule performs a deorbit burn, have been found on land. They include debris from the Crew-1 Crew Dragon trunk, found in Australia in 2022; the Ax-3 Crew Dragon, which fell in Saskatchewan in February; and the Crew-7 strain, fragments of which were found in North Carolina in May.
In August 2022, shortly after the Crew 1 debris was found in Australia, a SpaceX official downplayed the incident as an isolated case. “This was all within the expected analyzed space of what can happen,” Benji Reed, senior director of human spaceflight programs at SpaceX, said at a NASA briefing. “Still, as with launches and any reentry, we’re looking very carefully at the data, learning everything we can, and always looking for ways to improve.”
Following the more recent debris sightings, NASA and SpaceX now acknowledge that improvements are needed. The agency recently stated that initial investigations expected the trunk to burn up completely upon reentry. “NASA and SpaceX will continue to investigate additional solutions as we learn from the debris discovery,” NASA said.
“We did analysis before Demo-2 and it’s clear the models don’t handle the trunk very well,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said in an interview after a Starliner briefing ahead of the launch. that mission on June 6. He said this is likely due to the composite materials used in the trunk. “It’s almost a thermal protection system.”
The solution NASA and SpaceX are looking at, he says, involves changing deorbiting procedures. Currently, the hull is released before the capsule performs its orbital burn. That means the hull can remain in orbit for months before returning uncontrolled.
Instead, Stich said engineers are investigating whether to perform the deorbit burn and then release the trunk. That would give more control over where the tribe re-enters, and ensure that any debris that survives the re-entry ends up in unpopulated areas.
“We are currently doing that work,” he said. “If that is possible, I would like to have something ready next year, but we have to make the right analyses. We have to make sure it’s safe for the crew.”
The challenges of this alternative approach include using additional propellant to perform the deorbit combustion while the log is still attached, and then figuring out how best to separate the log after combustion. Stich said engineers are exploring a number of ways to do that, which would move the trunk further down from the capsule upon reentry so that all the debris would end up in the ocean.
Concerns about the risks of falling debris have grown, not only from the Dragon tribes but also from a piece of an ISS battery rack that made an uncontrolled reentry into the atmosphere on March 8. A piece of the rack, weighing nearly three-quarters of a kilogram, survived the reentry and struck a house in Naples, Florida. The debris crashed through the roof of the house but caused no injuries.
On June 21, law firm Cranfill Sumner LLP announced that it had filed a claim with NASA for an estimated $80,000 for damages caused by the debris. The filing, which some media outlets have mistakenly labeled as a lawsuit, is instead a claim under the Federal Torts Claim Act, which gives NASA six months to respond to the claim.
Mica Nguyen Worthy, the attorney who filed the claim on behalf of the family whose home was damaged, noted that under a space treaty known as the Space Liability Convention, the United States would be “absolutely liable” for damages if the debris hit another country, but that same absolute liability doesn’t apply here because the damage occurred in the United States.
“Here the U.S. government, through NASA, has an opportunity to set the standard or ‘set a precedent’ for what responsible, safe, and sustainable space operations should look like,” she said in the statement. Paying the claim, she concluded, “would send a strong signal to both other governments and private industries that such victims should be compensated regardless of fault.”
Others see opportunity in the falling debris. The debris from the Crew 7 tribe fell on a luxury campground called The Glamping Collective, which had photos of it on display. “We invite you to come experience it for yourself!” the website said, and it noted that the debris would be displayed at the start of a hiking trail.