A massive piece of space junk from Elon Musk’s SpaceX-1 craft, reportedly crash landed on a farmer’s property in Australia. The spacecraft, which costs $62m per launch, has started to deorbit after almost two years in space. Photos of the machine have now gone viral after they were shared on Twitter and other social media platforms.
Here’s what happened
Mick Miners and his family were alarmed after they heard a loud bang. It came from a sheep paddock on their property. When they reached the spot, they were baffled to see a massive piece of machinery. The bang was also reportedly heard by residents living in southern NSW, with some alleging they saw an explosion.
Miners said the junk measured about three metres in length. Moreover, it looked like a tree from a distance. As he wasn’t sure about the object, he called up the authorities for an inspection. Eventually, it was Australian National University space expert, Brad Tucker, who was able to identify the junk.
“SpaceX has this capsule that takes humans into space, but there is a bottom part… so when the astronauts come back, they leave the bottom part in space before the capsule lands,” he discussed in a radio talk.
A neighbouring farmer also found a similar piece of junk on his own farm
Miners isn’t the only person who had space junk on their property. A neighbouring farmer also found a similar object on his own farm. Thankfully, no one suffered any injuries due to the crash.
“In photographs of the debris, you can clearly see charring, which you would expect from re-entry (into the atmosphere). It is very rare to see because they don‘t usually land on land but in the ocean. People often think they find small pieces of space junk, but they would burn up on re-entry, so it’s more likely to be large pieces like this,” said Tucker.
The case was taken over by the Australian Space Agency after the object was identified, said Tucker. “We assume they don’t want it back because the whole point was to break in the ocean,” added Tucker.