VS’is a rather unusual finding. Three large pieces of space junk have been found in the Australian countryside, reports The Parisian. Suspected to be trash from a SpaceX mission launched in 2020, the fallen objects, initially unidentified, were found between July 14 and July 25, scattered in the Snowy Mountains region of the state of New South Wales.
The biggest piece, discovered by sheep farmer Mick Miners, is nearly 3 meters high and fell into one of his pens. The farmer notified the Australian authorities.
The Australian space agency worked with the United States to determine the exact nature of these pieces of metal and their owner. The coin found by Mick Miners has been analyzed. Thus, the debris comes from a capsule of the space company SpaceX, more precisely from its Crew Dragon Resilience. The village of Dalgety is near the capsule’s flight path and Australian National University space expert Brad Tucker confirmed the origin of the debris.
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SpaceX’s Crew-1 flight carried four astronauts to the International Space Station in November 2020, successfully conducting the company’s first operational crewed mission. The same capsule then brought them back to Earth in early May, with debris dropped from the mission expected to re-enter the atmosphere about two months later.
The spokesman for the Australian space agency said that “the debris is from a SpaceX mission and has opened a dialogue with our colleagues in the United States and with other members of the Commonwealth and local authorities”. The farmer’s neighbor also found debris near his house. Experts expect to find more in the coming days.