A home in the United States whose roof was damaged by space debris falling in Naples, Florida in March. Photo by NASA
” A family in Naples, Florida, whose home’s roof was damaged by falling space debris, has filed a lawsuit for damages against the U.S. space agency NASA.
According to The Guardian on the 22nd local time, the law firm Cranfill Sumner representing the family in Naples, Florida, announced that they have filed a lawsuit for damages amounting to $80,000 (approximately 110 million Korean won) on behalf of the family living in Naples.
The incident occurred on March 8 at the home of Alejandro Otero in Naples. A metal structure of a cargo pallet that detached from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021 was drifting in space for about 3 years until it fell on his house that day.
Although no one was injured, there were holes in the roof of the house and the second floor. Otero told local media, ‘There was a tremendous noise. My son almost got hit by the falling debris.’
The fallen structure is a cylindrical metal weighing about 700g, with a height of 10cm and a width of 4cm. NASA confirmed that the object fell from the ISS’s flight support equipment after collecting and analyzing it at the Kennedy Space Center.
In 2021, NASA disposed of a 2.6-ton battery pallet while replacing batteries on the ISS. It was expected to stay in orbit for 2-4 years before burning up in the atmosphere, but some remaining structures ended up passing through the atmosphere.
Otero’s lawyer Mika Evgen Wardy said, ‘We are thankful that no one was injured, but such a situation could have been a disaster.’ He claimed, ‘If the debris had fallen a few meters in the other direction, there could have been casualties or fatalities.’
Otero demanded that NASA compensate for the uninsured property damage, business disruptions, and mental anguish caused by the space debris crash. Mika emphasized that this lawsuit would create a precedent for compensating damage caused by space debris.”