Piece of the International Space Station crashed into Florida home: NASA

A piece of the International Space Station that was launched three years ago crashed into a house in Florida last month, according to NASA’s Monday press release.

A cargo pallet was released from the space station in March 2021. It was full of old batteries. When released, it was supposed to burn in Earth’s atmosphere without causing any harm, but a piece of it didn’t burn and ended up falling into a house in Naples, Florida, in early March of this year.

The object that hit the Florida home on March 8 weighed 1.6 pounds, NASA confirmed Monday.

WINK Newsa CBS News affiliate first reported the object’s crash.

The object hit the home of Naples resident Alejandro Otero, destroying the room and the floor of the house.

“It was a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son. He was two rooms away and heard everything,” Otero told WINK News. Otero was not home when the accident occurred, but the incident shook the entire family.

“I was shaking. I was in complete disbelief. What are the odds of something falling on my house with that much force and causing that much damage,” Otero said. “I’m just so thankful that no one got hurt.”

The piece was cylindrical in shape and was 1.6 inches wide and about 10 centimeters high. NASA examined and confirmed the object’s purpose at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“Based on examination, the agency determined that the debris was a NASA flight support equipment bracket used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet,” NASA said Monday.

NASA said the International Space Station will conduct a probe to find out why the debris survived falling into Earth’s atmosphere.

“NASA experts use engineering models to estimate how objects heat and break apart during atmospheric reentry,” NASA said Monday. “These models require detailed input parameters and are regularly updated when debris is discovered to have survived atmospheric re-entry into the ground.”