The Otero family of Naplesin Florida, sued NASA seeking compensation from 80 000 $ for damage caused by space debris from the International Space Station that the8 mars 2024 it punctured the roof and floor of their house, fortunately without injuring anyone. The piece of “space junk” was a metal cylinder weighing 720 g and 10 cm long, deformed and “burned” by atmospheric reentry. After an analysis carried out at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the American space agency confirmed that it was part of the equipment used in the mars 2021 for the replacement of some batteries of the orbital outpost. The object was ejected from the ISS with a cargo of approximately 2600 kgintended to deorbit until it burns up completely in the atmosphere due to friction on March 8, 2024, with a final fall point in Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, the debris that fell through the roof of the Oteros survived unexpectedly.
The story takes place precisely at the time when astronauts aboard the International Space Station were ordered to shelter in their capsules because a Russian satellite was no longer operational, Resource-P1had started losing debris in an orbit about 50 km lower than that of the ISS. The alarm then went off and nothing happened, just as no one was injured on March 8 in Naples, but it is clear that the risks associated with “space junk” are increasingly pressing, as is the need to find solutions.
Controlled re-entries into the atmosphere and space debris that went through the roof of the house in the USA
Indeed, atmospheric yields are established on the basis of complex physical models and engineering which take into account the chemical composition of the materials, their shape and the trajectory of the “space waste” dropped. It is therefore not a question of uncontrolled reentries, like those of the Long March rockets used by the Chinese space agency to build the Tiangong space station or that which recently occurred for the European satellite ERS-2, but of controlled reentries with an established orbit. based on model predictions. If these predict that the material will not completely burn up in the atmosphere, for example, the landing can be arranged to take place in safe locations, primarily the Nemo Point in the Pacific Ocean (the most isolated point on the planet). Clearly, in this case, something went wrong, and NASA’s studies will be useful in making subsequent returns safer. NASA engineers are working to understand why the debris did not burn up completely.
The risks linked to space waste: the need to find a solution
However, the Otero family affair has brought the spotlight back into concerns linked to the space debris that is increasingly cluttering low Earth orbit. It is no coincidence that the Otero family’s lawyer, Mica Nguyen Dignemotivated the complaint by explaining that “space debris is a real and serious problem due to the increase in space traffic in recent years.” NASA has six months to respond to the complaint and the request for compensation, but the case highlights very serious questions about the responsibility of space agencies and the strategies needed to mitigate these risks as much as possible. Currently, many space agencies are working on various projects for future missions. waste disposal to remove space debris from low orbit.
