Family suing NASA after space debris from ISS crashed through their home

Jordan Unger
·2 min read
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NAPLES, Fla. (WJW) – A Florida family is suing NASA after space debris from the International Space Station crash through their roof earlier this year.

The cylindrical metal object hit Alejandro Otero’s home in Naples on March 8. His son, who was home at the time, found the space junk had torn through the roof and damaged the floor.

After the crash, the object was taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In a blog post, NASA later confirmed the object was part of flight support equipment used to mount batteries on a cargo pallet.

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NASA ground controllers used a robotic arm on the International Space Station to release the cargo pallet after new lithium-ion batteries were installed. The blog post said, although the hardware was supposed to burn up in the atmosphere, a piece of the space junk made it to Earth and struck the Florida home.

NASA officials confirmed the object, made of alloy Inconel, was 1.6 pounds, 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter.

An attorney representing Otero’s family submitted a claim to NASA in May, the law firm announced Friday, seeking recovery from damages caused by the crash.

“The damages for the Otero family members include non-insured property damage loss, business interruption damages, emotional/mental anguish damages and the costs for assistance from third parties required in the process,” the law firm said in a press release.

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Attorney Mica Nguyen Worthy is calling the lawsuit the first of its kind as a “real life example” of what can happen if space debris makes it to the Earth’s surface.

“My clients are seeking adequate compensation to account for the stress and impact that this event had on their lives,” said Worthy. “They are grateful that no one sustained physical injuries from this incident, but a ‘near miss’ situation such as this could have been catastrophic. If the debris had hit a few feet in another direction, there could have been serious injury or a fatality.”

FOX 8 reached out to NASA for a statement.

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