• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Space Debris Weighing 500 Kilograms Crash-Lands Outside Mukuku Village In Kenya

January 4, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

On December 30, the people of Mukuku, a village in Kenya about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from the capital Nairobi, found a massive piece of space debris. Luckily nobody was harmed when the 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) rocket piece came crashing down.

Advertisement

The piece is a metallic ring 2.5 meters (8 feet) across believed to come from a launch vehicle. On New Year’s Eve, members of the Kenya Space Agency traveled to the site to assess the object, confirming it was indeed space junk that did not burn in our atmosphere.

Advertisement

“Preliminary assessments indicate that the fallen object is a separation ring from a launch vehicle (rocket). 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. This is an isolated case, which the Agency will investigate and address using the established framework under the International Space law,” the Kenya Space Agency said in a statement.

A lot of stuff that is sent into space and then comes back down will burn in the atmosphere. But not all of it. There has been a massive increase in space launches, mostly due to SpaceX’s regular launches of Starlink satellites. More material in orbit and more launches means a higher chance of stuff not burning up or falling near people.



In 2022, pieces from the SpaceX Crew-1 mission fell in Australia. Last year, a large chunk of a SpaceX rocket crash-landed on a Canadian farm. Also, last year a piece from an ISS junk drop fell onto a Florida house.

Advertisement

“We want to assure the public that the object poses no immediate threat to safety. Our experts will analyze the object, use existing frameworks to identify the owner, and keep the public informed of the next steps and outcomes,” the statement continued.

When it comes to laws and regulations in space, they leave a lot to be desired, but the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects states that a launching State is “absolutely liable to pay compensation for damage caused by its space objects”. It says “State”, but it is not clear what would happen if it were a private company causing the damage.

This is an extension of Article VII of the Outer Space Treaty. Kenya is also a signatory since 1984 and launched its first Earth Observation Satellite in 2023, called Taifa 1. The African nation is considering reviving launch capabilities from its own territory, due to its ideal location near the equator with an east-facing ocean.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Thousands bid farewell to acclaimed Greek composer Theodorakis
  2. NBA Top Shot creator on the NFT craze and why Ethereum still isn’t consumer friendly
  3. What’s Actually Beneath All The Polar Ice?
  4. Human Bog Body Found By Police In Ireland Could Date Back To 500 BCE

Source Link: Space Debris Weighing 500 Kilograms Crash-Lands Outside Mukuku Village In Kenya

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Rain At Burning Man? Prepare For The Return Of The Three-Eyed Dinosaur Shrimp
  • Supercell Storm Leaves 200-Kilometer-Long Hail Scar Across Canada’s “Hailstorm Alley”
  • “I Never Thought I’d Get To See A Blue Lobster In Person”: Meet Neptune, He’s 1-In-2-Million
  • Why Don’t Polar Bears Hibernate?
  • Anyone Born After 1939 Is Unlikely To Live To 100
  • Are Space-Made Medicines The Future? Find Out More In Issue 38 Of CURIOUS – Out Now
  • An Alien-Like Fish With A See-Through Head And Green Eyes Lurks In The Ocean’s Dark Depths
  • Africa Wants To Change Misleading World Map, The “Wow!” Signal Was Likely From An Extraterrestrial Source, And Much More This Week
  • A “Good Death”: How Do Doctors Want To Die?
  • People Are Throwing Baby Puffins Off Cliffs In Iceland Again – But Why?
  • Yet Another Ancient Human Skull Turns Out To Be Denisovan
  • Gen Z Might Not Be On Course For A Midlife Crisis – Good News, Right? Wrong
  • Glowing Plants, Punk Ankylosaur, And Has The Wow! Signal Been Solved?
  • Pulsar Fleeing A Supernova Spotted Where Neither Of Them Should Be
  • 20 Years After Hurricane Katrina: Is It Time For A New Approach To Hurricane Classification?
  • Dog Named Scribble Replicates Quantum Factorization Records – So We Tried It Too
  • How Old Is The Solar System? (And How Can We Tell?)
  • Next Week, A Record-Breaking Over 7 Billion People Will See The Total Lunar Eclipse
  • The Goblin Shark Has The Fastest Jaws In The Ocean, Firing Like A Slingshot At Speeds Of 3.1-Meters-Per-Second
  • We Thought Geological Boundaries Were Random. Now, A New Study Has Identified Hidden Patterns
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version