Space junk made an emergency landing in a luxurious country in North Carolina.
A team of landscapers working at The Glamping Collective, a mountaintop resort near Asheville in Haywood County, found a large, mysterious object on May 22. NASA confirmed it was part of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which is scheduled to reach the International Space Station (ISS) in 2023.
According to a report from Space.com, one large piece, about the size of a standard car hood and covered in a woven carbon fiber, was found on a walkway. Several smaller pieces also fell into the backyards of nearby homes.
The objects came from the “trunk of the Dragon spacecraft” which was predicted to “completely burn up,” ABC 13 in North Carolina reported.
Space junk tears through a family’s Florida home
SpaceX debris found along a path near a luxury resort in the North Carolina mountains on May 22. (The Glamping Collective)
Other pieces of the Elon Musk funded SpaceX‘S NASA said in a statement that part of the capsule was found in Canada in February and more recently in Saudi Arabia, around the same time the piece was found in North Carolina.
“NASA is not aware of any structural damage or injuries as a result of these findings,” the space agency said in a statement.
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A family in Florida had a similar, but much scarier, incident with space junk that didn’t burn up as expected.
In March, a 720-gram object made of a metal alloy pierced through the roof and two floors of a home in Naples, Florida, while a family member was still inside.
The homeowner, Alejandro Otero, said on X that it, “Tore through the roof and went through (sic) 2 floors. Almost his (sic) my son.”
Recovered NASA Flight Support Equipment stand used to mount International Space Station batteries to a cargo pallet. The stand survived re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024, and struck a home in Naples, Florida. (NASA)
Space debris found on a trail near a luxury mountain resort in North Carolina is about the size of the hood of a car. (The Glamping Collective)
The Glamping Collective resort in North Carolina is lit up at night. (The Glamping Collective)
Like the object that crashed in North Carolina, the object that hit the Otero family home would “heat up and break up during re-entry,” NASA told Fox News Digital in an earlier email.
In both cases, no one was injured, but Otero family attorney Mica Nguyen Worthy said, “A near miss like this could have been catastrophic.
“Space debris is a real and serious problem 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 jettison and reentry analysis to determine the cause of the debris’ survival and to update its models and analyses.”
“NASA remains committed to operating responsibly in low Earth orbit and to minimizing risks to protect people on Earth when space assets must be released.”
In this Saturday, April 24, 2021, photo provided by NASA, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule approaches the International Space Station for docking. (NASA via AP)
Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon are completely different rockets. (NASA)
To further substantiate Worthy’s point, a malfunctioning Russian satellite imploded near the ISS last week, prompting a brief exchange during Friday’s teleconference with NASA and Boeing officials.
The conference call with reporters focused mainly on the Starliner’s helium leaks and faulty thrusters, but officials expressed little concern about the spacecraft reaching Earth.
The threat was averted after the components missed the ISS.
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The resort promoted the space debris as an attraction.
“We invite you to come experience it for yourself! Starting Monday, June 3rd,” the resort says on its website. “We will have the space debris on display for you at the beginning 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 Nov. 9, 2021, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“An aurora floats beneath Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, docked at the forward port of the Harmony module, as the International Space Station soars 262 miles (428 kilometers) above the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia,” NASA said. (NASA/Matt Dominick)
Worthy filed a claim with NASA on behalf of the Otero family, saying 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 abroad and someone in another country had been harmed by the same space debris as in the Oteros case, the U.S. would absolutely have been liable for the damages.”
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She urged NASA and the US government to follow the same legal principle.
NASA declined to comment on the ongoing legal action.