A piece of metal found on a remote trail at a luxury camping resort in North Carolina came 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 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere after traveling to the International Space Station, NASA said in an emailed statement. “NASA is not aware of any structural damage or injuries resulting from these findings,” the space agency said.
Space debris is equipment left in space by humans and may include items such as defunct satellites or small spacecraft material. In recent months, a family in Florida sued NASA after a part from one of the space agency’s flights landed on their home. Separately, SpaceX employees traveled to a Canadian farm to recover 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 approximately five miles of private hiking trails and guests stay in geodesic domes and cabins.
Matt Bare, its founder the Glamping Collective, said about eight acres of the 160-acre property has been developed, and the object happened to land on one of the hiking trails. “It could have been almost anywhere else on the property and no one would have ever seen it,” he said.
A member of the resort’s landscaping crew found the debris on May 22 while doing routine trail maintenance. Mr. Bare estimated that the object weighed about 100 pounds and was about 4 feet by 4 feet in size. He said they quickly realized the object must have come from the sky because of its size and the remote location where it was found.
Mr Bare recalled that when the resort’s geodesic domes were being built, locals said it looked as if UFOs had landed on the mountain. “We just laughed, but two years later, we actually have UFOs that have landed on Crabtree Mountain.”
Space junk is now displayed for guests to view at the resort. Mr. Bare said officials had not heard from NASA or SpaceX.
The debris came from the fuselage of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, NASA said. The Dragon spacecraft has two sections: a pressurized section that can carry people or cargo, and a pressurized section, the trunk, which features hardware used to power and cool the spacecraft while in orbit. The trunk remains attached to the Dragon until shortly before it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, when it ejects and disintegrates.
SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
“During its original design, the fuselage of the Dragon spacecraft was evaluated for re-entry breakup and was predicted to burn up completely,” NASA said. “Information from debris recovery provides an opportunity for teams to improve debris modeling. NASA and SpaceX will continue to explore additional solutions as we learn from the recovered debris.”
After WLOSa local news channel in North Carolina reported on the debris found at the Glamping Collective, residents in nearby towns they told the news channel that they had smaller pieces were found from similar items in their yards.
There are millions of pieces of space junk flying in low Earth orbit, the region of space where objects fly at an altitude of 1,200 miles or lower, according to NASA.
Last week, a decommissioned Russian satellite disintegrated into more than 100 fragments, creating a debris cloud in low Earth orbit that prompted astronauts on the International Space Station to take protective measures for about an hour.
Space junk can also find its way to Earth.
A piece of the fuselage of a SpaceX Dragon capsule was found by a shepherd in a remote corner of southeastern Australia in July 2022. Last month, SpaceX employees recovered 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 in March by a piece of space debris. the space agency said he expected the debris to burn up completely upon entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA said that “in the unlikely event” a person found space debris, they should not attempt to handle or retrieve it, but that they should contact SpaceX’s garbage hotline.
