Aug. 4 – The Australian Space Agency has confirmed that several pieces of space debris found in the Snowy Mountains region of southern New South Wales are from a SpaceX-built spacecraft. Astrophysicists expect to find more debris in the area in the coming years, presumably from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which will be launched in 2020.
Australian Space Agency technical experts visited the remote area on Saturday. Local sheep herders Mick Miners and Jock Wallace both found a piece of space debris on their farms.
Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University, warned that the time and location of the space debris he found coincided with the re-entry of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft into the Earth’s atmosphere at 7 a.m. on July 9 this year, 20 months after the spacecraft’s launch in November 2020.
Tucker believes the debris came from the SpaceX Dragon’s unpressurized trunk, which was critical during takeoff but would have been discarded when the spacecraft returned to Earth.
We have confirmed that the debris came from the SpaceX mission,” an Australian Space Agency spokeswoman said. We will continue to engage with our U.S. counterparts and other agencies as appropriate.”
“If any suspected debris is found in the community, do not dispose of or recycle it yourself,” the spokesperson said. “SpaceX’s debris hotline or debris recovery website should be contacted.”
Since the announcement of the discovery of the first two pieces of space debris, a third piece of debris has been found further west, Tucker said.
He expects that since people know there is debris here, more people will report finding debris from space “in the next few weeks, months and even years.
An Australian Space Agency spokesman said the company “works under the Australian Government’s Space Re-entry Debris Program, which outlines the roles and responsibilities of key Australian Government agencies in how they will deal with space re-entry debris.
Tucker said they are currently discussing whether SpaceX will collect the space debris. He said it’s important to gather information about that, which could involve delineating liability and defining damages.
Tucker said it seems to him that a possible scenario could arise in which SpaceX would not have to pay given that no damage was caused, which is quite different from the situation in the 1980s when a Soviet nuclear-powered satellite crashed in Canada.
Because that satellite was nuclear-powered, Canada spent millions of dollars to clean up the wreckage, Tucker said. Canada demanded C$6 million (about $4.67 million) in compensation from the Soviet Union, but ended up getting only half of that.
Tucker also explained why the space debris did not form a giant crater when it hit the ground.
When the spacecraft re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it decelerates dramatically and disintegrates as most of the energy is absorbed by the atmosphere. It’s like when you throw a ball through a window, (the smashed) glass fragments don’t necessarily move at the speed of the ball,” Tucker said. They slow down because of the energy transfer.”
Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University, explained that the space debris could also have bounced a long way from where it first landed.
Webb says the Tungus event of 1908 illustrates this point well: “Such a huge meteorite crashed into the Siberian forest. People around Eastern Siberia heard the huge blast, and the shock wave flattened thousands of trees in the area, but they were never able to fully identify the actual impact crater.”
The space debris wasn’t hot, Tucker said, because they were cold for most of their time in space. And the warming time as they pass through the Earth’s atmosphere is relatively short.
Tucker explained, “It’s kind of like if you take a frozen pizza out of the freezer, put it in the microwave for three seconds, and then put it back in the freezer, it doesn’t actually get hot.”
Webb said any space debris that doesn’t burn up on re-entry should splash down in the Pacific Ocean at a place called “Point Nemo,” the most remote point on Earth’s surface from land.
A NASA spokesman said, “We are committed to the long-term sustainability of outer space activities, including space debris reduction.”
