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A family in Florida has filed an unprecedented lawsuit against NASA after space debris from the International Space Station (ISS) ripped through the roof and two floors of their home.
According to a since-deleted post on X (Twitter), the owner of the Naples, Florida home, Alejandro Otero, claimed that the space debris that tore through his house almost hit his son.
“[The Otero family is] grateful that no one sustained physical injuries from this incident, but a ‘near miss’ situation such as this could have been catastrophic,” the family’s attorney, Mica Nguyen Worthy, said in a statement.
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Friday March 8th, 2024 at 2:34pm
Here’s a clip from the sound of it crashing into my roof with a timestamp https://t.co/liP0cPQsTt— Alejandro Otero (@Alejandro0tero) March 16, 2024
Alejandro Otero, as it turns out, correctly speculated that the space debris came from a 2.9 ton pallet of used batteries jettisoned from the International Space Station in March of 2021. It was the largest object the station has ever jettisoned.
“Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet,” NASA officials wrote.
The pallet of batteries was expected to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, but NASA, so far, doesn’t know why it didn’t.
“The International Space Station will perform a detailed investigation of the jettison and reentry analysis to determine the cause of the debris survival and to update modeling and analysis, as needed,” wrote NASA officials.
In the meantime, the Otero family is seeking compensation for non-insured property damage loss, business interruption damages, emotional/mental anguish damages, and the costs for assistance from third parties required in the process.
“Space debris is a real and serious issue because of the increase in space traffic in recent years,” attorney Worthy stated, adding, “My clients are seeking adequate compensation to account for the stress and impact that this event had on their lives. They are grateful that no one sustained physical injuries from this incident, but a ‘near miss’ situation such as this could have been catastrophic. If the debris had hit a few feet in another direction, there could have been serious injury or a fatality.”
She’s not wrong in her claims about the proliferation of space debris.
In 2019, it was reported that there is now so much space junk floating around Earth that it may limit our ability to travel into space in the future.