A piece of metal found on a remote trail at a luxury camping resort in North Carolina was from a SpaceX Dragon capsule, NASA said, confirming that the mysterious object was yet another piece of space junk that recently landed on Earth.
The debris came from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that had reentered Earth’s atmosphere after a trip to the International Space Station, NASA said in an emailed statement. “NASA is not aware of any structural damage or injuries as a result of these findings,” the space agency said.
Space debris is equipment left behind in space by humans, and can include objects such as defunct satellites or small spacecraft hardware. In recent months, a family in Florida sued NASA after a light fixture from one of the space agency’s flights landed on their home. In addition, SpaceX employees traveled to a Canadian farm to retrieve debris found there.
The North Carolina object was found in the mountains about 23 miles west of Asheville, NC, at a resort called the Glamping Collective. The private property has about five miles of private hiking trails, and guests stay in geodesic domes and cabins.
Matt Bare, a founder of the Glamping Collective, said about eight acres of the 160-acre site have been developed, and the object just happened to end up on one of the hiking trails. “It could have been anywhere else on the property and no one would have ever seen it,” he said.
A member of the resort’s landscape team found the debris on May 22 during routine trail maintenance. Mr. Bare estimated the object weighed about 100 pounds and was about 4 feet by 4 feet. He said they quickly realized the object had to be airborne due to its size and the remote location where it was found.
Mr. Bare recalled that when they were building the resort’s geodesic domes, locals said it looked like UFOs had landed on the mountain. “We just laughed about it, but two years later we actually had unidentified flying objects land on Crabtree Mountain.”
The space junk is now on display for guests at the resort. Mr. Bare said employees had not heard anything from NASA or SpaceX.
The debris came from the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, NASA said. The Dragon spacecraft has two sections: a pressurized section that can carry people or cargo, and an unpressurized section, called the trunk, which carries hardware used to power and cool the spacecraft in orbit. The trunk remains attached to the Dragon until shortly before re-entry, when it is jettisoned and breaks apart.
SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
“During initial design, the Dragon spacecraft case was evaluated for reentry and was predicted to burn up completely,” NASA said. “The information from the debris recovery provides teams with the opportunity to improve debris modeling. NASA and SpaceX will continue to explore additional solutions as we learn from the debris discovered.”
After WLOS, a local news station in North Carolina, reported on the debris found at the Glamping Collective, residents in nearby towns told the news station they had found smaller pieces of similar objects in their yards.
According to NASA, there are millions of pieces of space debris flying in low Earth orbit, the region of space where objects fly at an altitude of 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) or lower.
Last week, a decommissioned Russian satellite shattered into more than 100 pieces, creating a cloud of debris in low Earth orbit. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station had to take protective measures for about an hour.
Space debris can also find its way to Earth.
In July 2022, a piece of the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon capsule was found by a sheep herder in a remote corner of southeastern Australia. Last month, SpaceX workers retrieved debris from a farm in Saskatchewan, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
A family in Naples, Florida, sued NASA in May after their home was hit by a piece of space debris in March. The space agency said it expected the debris to burn up completely as it entered Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA said that in the “unlikely event” that someone finds space debris, they should not attempt to handle or retrieve it but should contact the SpaceX debris hotline.