Junk from the ISS fell on a house in the U.S., NASA confirms

Recovered stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount International Space Station batteries on a cargo pallet. The stanchion survived reentry through Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024, and impacted a home in Florida. — A regular stanchion (left) and the one recovered from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount International Space Station batteries on a cargo pallet. The recovered stanchion survived reentry through Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024, and impacted a home in Florida. NASA

When Alejandro Otero’s son called him on March 8 to say that something had crashed through the roof of their home, he initially thought it might have been a meteorite.

But when he got home and inspected the object, he immediately realized that it was man-made.

Speculation quickly grew that it may have come from the International Space Station (ISS), and on Monday NASA confirmed this to be true.

The object that tore through the roof of Otero’s house was part of a 5,800-pound pallet of space junk containing aging nickel hydride batteries that was released from the orbital outpost in March 2021.

“The hardware was expected to fully burn up during entry through Earth’s atmosphere,” NASA said in a message posted on its website this week. “However, a piece of hardware survived reentry and impacted a home in Naples, Florida.” NASA said it collected the item in cooperation with the homeowner and analyzed it at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The agency concluded that the object was a two-pound piece of stanchion from NASA equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet. Though it melted slightly, a good chunk of the stanchion survived the high-speed descent before ending its journey in Naples.

The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter, NASA said. A detailed investigation of the jettison and reentry process will be carried out to find out how the debris came to survive the burn-up phase as it fell to Earth.

NASA insisted it “remains committed to responsibly operating in low-Earth orbit, and mitigating as much risk as possible to protect people on Earth when space hardware must be released.”

Commenting on the incident soon after it happened, Otero said: “I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage,” adding that he was “super grateful that nobody got hurt.”