Kenya Space Agency (KSA) has confirmed that fragments of metal, believed to be from a rocket, weighing nearly 500 kg, crashed into a village in the country's north on Tuesday
A red-hot piece of space debris that weighs half a tonne plummeted to Earth this week, landing in a remote Kenyan village.
The charred metal object was later identified to be the separation ring from a launch rocket that crash landed in Makueni county, south-east of Nairobi.
Experts have warned that incidents of space junk landing in populated areas without breaking up on re-entry are on the rise as the amount of debris in orbit surges.
Authorities were still investigating the extent of the damage to the village of Mukuku as well as the ring’s origin and ownership, said Major Aloyce Were of the Kenya Space Agency.
Space debris that landed in a remote Kenyan village this week has been identified as a separation ring from a launch rocket. Screengrab / Citizen TV
“Space is no longer as safe as we used to know it,” he told local television stations.
Were added he piece of glowing space junk, which weighs as much as a grand piano, landed in bushland on Monday and there had been no reports of injuries.
“Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans,” the agency later said in a statement, calling it an “isolated case”.
A resident, who was not named, told the Kenyan Tuko news site: “I heard what I thought was an explosion when it landed here… I asked, ‘Is the world ending today?’.
“I was shocked because it was so sunny with no hint of rain. I hope our leaders will tell us what this object was and why it fell here.”
“We want the owner of this land to be compensated,” Paul Musili, another resident, told local news. “Since this object fell, we have not been sleeping. Everyone is wondering what is going on.”
Distribution of space debris, which is on the increase, around Earth. Gif / ESA
The European Space Agency estimated last year that there were more than 14,000 tonnes of material in low Earth orbit.
Roughly a third of that is junk, according to Dr Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.
“We’ve reached this point in our exploration and use of space where this isn’t just something that happens once in a blue moon, it is now almost every month or two,” she told the New York Times.
In 2023, the US Federal Communications Commission handed out its first fine over space debris, forcing television provider Dish Network to pay US$150,000 ($268,000).
However, Webb warned that holding companies or countries accountable for crash landings is going to prove difficult.
In March 2023, debris from the International Space Station crashed through the roof of a home. The family later launched a claim of US$80,000 in compensation from Nasa.
Legal experts believe the case could set the precedent for space debris claims in the private and public sectors.
