NASA recently confirmed that mysterious pieces of space debris found in the mountains of North Carolina are the remains of a SpaceX Crew Dragon “trunk” that reentered the earth’s atmosphere in May.
According to Fox News, a landscaping crew at The Glamping Collective mountain resort in North Carolina found a large chunk of the space debris on May 22. NASA confirmed that the debris was from a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule’s mission to the International Space Station (ISS) last year.
Justin Clontz, a maintenance worker for The Glamping Collective, described the mysterious discovery, saying, “It was kind of wicked looking.”
“It’s just something that you don’t normally see,” Clontz added. “I’ve seen spaceships and stuff on TV, but the average person doesn’t get to see it up close.”
A picture of the SpaceX Crew Dragon debris was shared on X, formerly Twitter.
Space.com reported that one large piece of debris, which was roughly the size of a car hood, was found on a hiking trail, while several smaller pieces of debris were found in the yards of nearby houses.
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In a news release obtained by ABC 13 North Carolina, NASA officials stated, “SpaceX has confirmed the re-entry of Dragon spacecraft trunk hardware to NASA following its service missions to the International Space Station.”
NASA noted that the “Dragon spacecraft trunk hardware” was “predicted to burn up fully.” Despite the hardware reentering the earth’s atmosphere and crashing on land, NASA officials said the agency was “unaware of any structural damage or injuries resulting from these findings.”
NASA officials announced that other debris from the SpaceX capsule had been recently discovered in Saudi Arabia and that space debris from the capsule was also located in Canada in February.
“During its initial design, the Dragon spacecraft trunk was evaluated for re-entry breakup and was predicted to burn up fully,” NASA said in its news release. “The information from the debris recovery provides an opportunity for teams to improve debris modeling. NASA and SpaceX will continue exploring additional solutions as we learn from the discovered debris.”
