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NASA confirms its space trash pierced Florida man’s roof


On March 8, a piece of space debris plunged through a roof in Naples, FL, ripped through two floors and (fortunately) barely missed the son of homeowner Alejandro Otero. On Tuesday, NASA confirmed the results of its analysis of the incident.

NASA’s investigation of the object at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral confirmed it was a piece of the EP-9 support equipment used to mount batteries onto a cargo pallet, which the ISS’ robotic arm dropped on March 11, 2021. The haul, made up of discarded nickel-hydrogen batteries, was expected to orbit Earth between two to four years (it split the difference, lasting almost exactly three) “before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere,” as NASA predicted at the time. It explains, “Due to the rate of speed and volume of debris in LEO, current and future space-based services, explorations, and operations pose a safety risk to people and property in space and on Earth.”

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