WASHINGTON — NASA and SpaceX are studying how to modify the Dragon spacecraft’s reentry process to limit the amount of debris from the spacecraft’s fuselage that reaches the ground.
On several occasions, debris from Dragon spacecraft hulls jettisoned from the capsule before the capsule performed a deorbit burn has been found on land. This includes debris from the Crew-1 Crew Dragon hull found in Australia in 2022; the Ax-3 Crew Dragon hull that crashed in Saskatchewan in February; and the Crew-7 hull, fragments of which were found in North Carolina in May.
In August 2022, shortly after the Crew-1 debris was found in Australia, a SpaceX representative downplayed the incident as an isolated incident. “This was all within the expected analyzed range of what can happen,” said Benji Reed, senior director of human spaceflight programs at SpaceX, at a NASA briefing. “However, we are looking closely at the data, just as we do with launches and every return, we are learning everything we can, and we are always looking for ways to make things better.”
Following the recent debris sightings, NASA and SpaceX now acknowledge that improvements are needed. The agency recently stated that initial studies assumed the fuselage would burn up completely upon reentry. “NASA and SpaceX will continue to explore additional solutions as we learn from the debris discovered,” NASA said.
“We did analysis before Demo-2 and the models obviously don’t handle the fuselage well,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, in an interview after a Starliner briefing before that mission’s launch on June 6. He said that’s probably because of the composite materials used in the fuselage. “It’s almost like a thermal protection system.”
The solution NASA and SpaceX are considering, he said, involves changing the deorbit procedures. Currently, the fuselage is released before the capsule performs its orbit burn. This means the fuselage can remain in orbit for months before re-entering uncontrolled.
Instead, Stich said, engineers are looking into whether they can first ignite the fuselage from orbit and then release it. This would allow better control over where the fuselage re-enters and ensure that any debris that survives re-entry lands in uninhabited regions.
“We are in the process of doing that work,” he said. “If possible, I would like to get something up and running next year, but we need to do all the necessary analysis. We need to make sure it is safe for the crew.”
The challenges of this alternative approach include using extra fuel to perform the deorbit burn while the fuselage is still attached, and then figuring out how best to separate the fuselage after the burn. Stich said engineers are looking at several ways to accomplish this that would result in the fuselage being farther away from the capsule during reentry so that any debris would end up in the ocean.
Concerns about falling debris have increased not only in connection with the Dragon hulls, but also with a piece of an ISS battery rack that uncontrolledly reentered the Earth’s atmosphere on March 8. A piece of that rack, weighing almost three-quarters of a kilogram, survived reentry and struck a house in Naples, Florida. The debris pierced the roof of the house but caused no injuries.
On June 21, the law firm Cranfill Sumner LLP announced that it had filed a lawsuit with NASA for an estimated $80,000 for damages caused by the debris. The lawsuit was mistakenly labeled a lawsuit by some media outlets, but is actually a claim under the Federal Torts Claim Act, which gives NASA six months to respond to the lawsuit.
Mica Nguyen Worthy, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the family whose home was damaged, pointed out that the United States would be “absolutely liable” if the debris hit another country under a space treaty called the Liability Convention. But that absolute liability does not apply here because the damage occurred in the United States.
“Here the U.S. government, through NASA, has the opportunity to set the standard or ‘a precedent’ for what responsible, safe and sustainable space operations should look like,” she said in the statement. Paying the compensation, she concluded, “would send a strong signal to other governments and private companies that such victims should be compensated regardless of their culpability.”
Others see the falling debris as an opportunity. The debris from the Crew 7 kit fell on a luxury campground called The Glamping Collective, which has put pictures of it on display. “We invite you to experience this for yourself!” the campground’s website said, noting that the debris would be on display at the start of a hiking trail.