Expert astronomers point to SpaceX as debris source
- by The Mountaineer
- May 29, 2024
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Last week, mystery fell on the mountains when space debris plunged from the sky onto The Glamping Collective campground in Thickety. After speaking with astronomers, the culprit seems clear â the source is almost certainly SpaceX, an American spacecraft manufacturer and the brainchild of Elon Musk.
After reporting on the mystery object and seeing a stark similarity to debris reported days earlier in Canada, The Mountaineer reached out to Canadian astronomer Samantha Lawler from University of Regina, who helped identify the piece that crashed down last month in Saskatchewan, Canada. We also contacted Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist with the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who took to Twitter with his theory about the spacecraft.
Path lines up
âThis definitely looks consistent with being a bit of the Crew-7 Dragonâs trunk which reentered on a path right over this location on Tuesday,â McDowell tweeted on May 24, noting that the path of the reentry aligned with the piece found Wednesday, May 22, on the campground property.
After utilizing Space Force tracking data, McDowell tweeted out a photo of the path the debris would have fallen, otherwise known as the point of reentry.
McDowell was able to assist Lawler in identifying the piece found in Canada and was quick to look into the piece that descended into Haywood County.
âWeâve had three re-entries which have had debris like this. I mean, thereâs many, many reentries of the space age that have had junk on the ground,â McDowell said. âIâm talking about the specific SpaceX Dragon 2 design, which leaves these particularly big chunks. We had one in Australia in 2022, one in Saskatchewan earlier this year that Sam has investigated. And then, this one.â
The reentries are from three separate Crew Dragon Trunks over the course of two years.
The timing fits
McDowell said the timing of the debris found last week perfectly lines up with the path of the SpaceX Dragon 2, which launched in March to propel four astronauts to the space station.
âItâs the space Uber. They spend about six months on the station, and then they come home,â McDowell explained. âBut the big boom in satellite launches in general is for satellite-based internet. And itâs so that you get more broadband anywhere in the world. That is the idea behind it.â
McDowell looked at three things when conjuring up his hypothesis: Does it look like a piece of the Dragon? Is it near the reentry path of the trunk, the backend of the craft, according to the Space Force tracking? And did it come down at the right time?
The points line up
The reentry path has been mapped as running southwest to northeast, west of Asheville, in a line roughly over Franklin, Tuckasegee and Haywood County.
âWe know, from the reentry data, that the place that any debris would have come down is somewhere on that line...,â McDowell said. âIâve been looking back and comparing where debris is being found on the other ones to what the tip reentry point is from SpaceForce, and itâs a couple-hundred miles downrange of the reentry point. Itâs really consistent, itâs in exactly the right place. So, it really looks like this is just a piece of this dragon trunk.â
The âreentryâ point would be the point in time when the space debris stops orbiting earth and the outer atmosphere drags in the âtrunkâ, the back end of the craft, which has been jettisoned, or released from the spacecraft.
The trunk eventually hits the atmosphere, where it burns up like a shooting star, but some larger pieces end up falling earthward.
McDowell said the reentry for the piece would have been around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, May 21 â the day before it was found.
The trunk travels at a whopping 17,000 miles an hour when it hits the top of the atmosphere. The sheer speed of the trunk is part of the reason there would be no way of telling where or when the object is set to come down.
Easy landing?
âIf youâre an hour wrong about predicting when itâs going to come down, youâre 17,000 miles out in â where, right?â McDowell said. âThereâs no way to go, âoh, look out North Carolina residents, this thing is going to come on you,â because we didnât know until after the fact that it was going to be at that time.â
People observing reentries may perceive them as shooting stars. The âfireballâ that arcs through the sky is the kinetic energy, energy in motion, that is heated up by headwind, wind blowing in the opposite direction, because itâs going so fast.
âThat (conversion) slows it down until it reaches terminal velocity, which is like a couple of hundred miles an hour. And so, by the time it hits the ground, itâs only going like 100 or 200 miles an hour or something like that,â McDowell said.
And while that speed is still a clear hazard, it could possibly explain why no one at the campsite heard the crash upon impact. McDowell confirmed it is in fact possible that the trees softened the blow as it descended, just as Justin Clontz, a landscaper responsible for finding the piece, predicted.
There were also sonic booms heard up the range in North Carolina. Twitter users in eastern Tennessee heard âStrings of boom like thunder, but rapid-fire and way too close to each other to be thunderâ at approx. 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday.
McDowell noted that these could have been the result of the crash.
âItâs like 40 miles up you get the sonic booms, and then itâs slowing down to be subsonic. And so now that itâs subsonic, youâre not getting the sonic boom. And so, itâs just gonna thump into the ground like, âOh, I dropped something,ââ McDowell said.
Lawler noted that nobody heard anything from the piece that fell in Canada, though it was the dead of winter.
Itâs got the look
Both Clontz and The Glamping Collective owner Matt Blare made an accurate guess when they said it was made from carbon fiber material.
âThatâs exactly right. Itâs what they called composite materials, a carbon fiber base thing," McDowell said.
One half of the trunk is covered in solar panels that provide power to Dragon during flight and while on-station, according to SpaceX website.
McDowell compared the black and white piece to being similar to the trunk of a car, except the âcargoâ it carries is some of the solar panels and freight that helps lift the spacecraft to the space station.
The material also matches the material Lawler saw when she examined the piece of debris in Canada.
âIt has this weird, like, aluminum honeycomb sandwiched in between carbon fibers, right. At least it was like that with the piece that I got to go play with,â Lawler said.
Those who viewed the up-close video on The Mountaineerâs Facebook can visibly see the similarities in the âhoneycombâ material.
âItâs made of this composite material, which apparently survives reentry much better than we had previously thought. And so, weâve seen now on three of these re-entries from three different missions, pieces that looked very, very, very similar to each other,â McDowell said.
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