NASA announced Monday that part of the International Space Station (ISS) crashed into a home in Naples, Florida in March 2024.
Is it a bird? Is it a meteor? No! It’s part of the International Space Station falling out of the cosmos and crashing into your living room, mate. Or at least, it crashed into a Naples home in what appears to be a pretty big surprise for the space agency.
It all started in March when ground control at NASA used the ISS’s robotic arm to release a cargo pallet into space, according to the agency. The total mass released by the machine was around 5,800 lbs, which was expected to burn up during re-entry to our atmosphere around March 8, 2024.
the chunk of ISS garbage that hit a home in Naples, FL wasn’t a battery, it was a battery platform stanchion. Carry on.https://t.co/SW9EN2oYa1 pic.twitter.com/SD1RxD9mBV
— Tim Fernholz (@TimFernholz) April 15, 2024
But Houston had a problem (technically Kennedy Space Center in Florida had the problem, but I’m trying to be fun). (RELATED: Watch As Fireball Lights Up Skies Over New Jersey Just Days After Eclipse, Earthquake)
At least one piece of the hardware did not burn up upon re-entry and instead landed in a home in Florida. NASA was able to collect the debris and bring it back to Kennedy Space Center for analysis.
“Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet. The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter,” the agency said in their statement.
The ISS will also perform a “detailed investigation” of the situation to help NASA mitigate future risk during the release of space hardware.