Space debris crashed through the roof of Alejandro Otero's home!
The 2-pound object came from the International Space Station, and tore through the roof and both floors of his house in Naples. Otero son was there to witness the crash, as a Nest home security camera captured the sound. US Space Command recorded the reentry of a piece of debris from the station, that put the object on a path over the Gulf of Mexico, heading toward southwest Florida.
The space junk was depleted batteries from the ISS, that was attached to a cargo pallet that was supposed to come back to Earth in a controlled manner. Delays caused the pallet to miss its ride back to Earth, so NASA jettisoned the batteries from the space station back in 2021. NASA has recovered the debris,
Josh Finch, an agency spokesperson said. "More information will be available once the analysis is complete."
The entire pallet, included nine disused batteries from the station's power system, which had a mass of more than 2.6 metric tons, as objects of this mass, regularly fall to Earth on guided trajectories.
Otero is waiting for "the responsible agencies" to resolve the cost of damages to his home. If the object is owned by NASA, a claim can be made against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi.
"It gets more interesting if this material is discovered to be not originally from the United States," she says. "If it is a human-made space object which was launched into space by another country, which caused damage on Earth, that country would be absolutely liable to the homeowner for the damage caused."
This could be an issue, as the batteries were owned by NASA, but attached to a pallet launched by Japan's space agency.