When a Florida family filed a claim against NASA over "space junk" that fell through their roof earlier this year, it launched a potentially precedent-setting question: Who is liable when debris ...

Although tiny, such objects can cause serious damage to operational satellites. In 2016, for example, a bullet-sized piece of space junk punched a 16-inch (40 cm) hole into the solar panel of the ...

The chance of damage to property, on the other hand, is higher. It could be as high as 1% for any given re-entry of the Long March 5B. Also, the overall risk posed by space debris will increase ...

Space debris is no exception ... small to be detected by current tracking systems — can cause huge amounts of damage owing to the sheer velocity at which they travel. The ISS relies on ballistic ...

And since no damage was done, the U.S. — the country ... There have also been incidents involving space junk from China. In 2007, a plane narrowly avoided being hit by Russian space debris.

there is no mechanism for a US citizen to seek claims from the US government for damage from space debris. So the Otero family is making a first-ever claim under the Federal Torts Claim Act for ...

When they do succumb to gravity, the results can be unpredictable, and space debris damage can literally occur anywhere. If that gives you chills, take comfort in the fact that the sheer amount of ...

The battery pallet as it was released from the ISS in 2021. Photo: NASA On March 8, a small, cylinder-shaped object fell from the skies and crashed through the roof of a family home in Naples ...

And when these objects unintentionally collide, they explode into thousands of debris fragments that can seriously damage operational spacecraft. With a booming commercial space industry that has ...

but a chip that flies into a spacecraft at 17,500 mph can severely damage or even destroy the vessel. It's happened to satellites, and many objects have run afoul of an errant piece of space junk.