There are pieces of debris on Australian farmland that are thought to have come from a SpaceX mission. The private space company has yet to take possession of the parts that fell.
According to The Guardian, the Australian Space Agency is looking into the crash of apparent space junk on the Snowy Mountains. There were three large pieces of burnt debris found between July 14 and 25.
The pieces that were thrown away were part of the Crew Dragon spaceship that carried four astronauts to the International Space Station in November 2020. Users on social media captured a fiery streak in the sky above Australia on July 9 after the spaceship reentered Earth's atmosphere.
Marco Langbroek, an astronomer and space missions lecturer at the Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, said that this is a part of the trunk of a Crew Dragon. The shell of the trunk is 13 feet in length and weighs hundreds of pounds. Gizmodo asked if this space junk belonged to the company, but they didn't reply.
The objects have been handed over to the police department. The commander of the police district said that they believed it could be associated with the company.
The Crew Dragon trunk is tucked beneath the spaceship and is used to carry cargo and power the spaceship's ascent to space. The trunk is attached to the Dragon until it reenters Earth's atmosphere, at which point it will be detached. The trunk is left to reenter the atmosphere on its own after the Dragon lands.
With a growing private space industry and increasing space ambitions for countries like China, falling parts are likely to happen more frequently. There were pieces of a Chinese rocket that fell on parts of Indonesia and Malaysia over the weekend. According to a new study, there is an increasing likelihood that space junk could hurt or kill someone on Earth. It's important for companies like SpaceX to account for where their rockets fall, or at least own up to it when they land near populated areas.
There are suspicions of debris from a Chinese rocket falling on to three Indian villages.
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