A few weeks ago, an object, possibly from the ISS, crashed onto the roof of a house in Florida. The house belongs to Alejandro Otero, who was not there at the time of the incident. However, the incident was recorded with the camera at home. The object crashed at 14:34 local time on March 8; This corresponds with the time when the US Space Command announced that pieces of space debris from the ISS were returning to the atmosphere. The object was over the Gulf of Mexico and heading toward southwest Florida, according to the Kennedy Space Center.

The object was batteries discharged from the ISS attached to a cargo pallet that was initially expected to return to Earth in a controlled manner. However, due to technical delays in 2021, NASA decided to deorbit it to burn up in the atmosphere.

NASA collected the debris from the host, and Kennedy Space Center engineers will conduct an analysis to determine its origin. Most of the batteries and the cargo pallet had to burn as their temperatures reached several thousand degrees during re-entry.

The weight of the pallet containing the faulty batteries was more than 2.6 tonnes. Objects of this mass occasionally fall to Earth, usually as failed satellites or rocket stages after the mission is completed.

Alejandro Otero is waiting for information from “responsible institutions” regarding the damages. If the facility is owned by NASA, Otero or his insurance company could sue for damages under federal law, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the University of Mississippi’s Aerospace Law Center.

If it turns out that the object belongs to another country, that country is responsible for the damage caused. The batteries belonged to NASA but were attached to a track structure launched by Japan’s space agency.