Debris Found in North Carolina Came From SpaceX Dragon, NASA Says

A hunk of metal found on a remote trail in a luxury camping resort in North Carolina came from a SpaceX Dragon capsule, NASA said, confirming that the mystery object was yet another piece of space junk that has recently landed on Earth.

The debris came from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that had re-entered Earth’s atmosphere after traveling to the International Space Station, NASA said in an emailed statement. “NASA is unaware of any structural damage or injuries resulting from these findings,” the space agency said.

Space debris is equipment left in space by humans and can include objects such as satellites that no longer work or small hardware from spacecraft. In recent months, a family in Florida sued NASA because a fixture from one of the space agency’s flights landed on their home. Separately, SpaceX workers traveled to a Canadian farm to retrieve debris found there.

The North Carolina object was found in the mountains about 23 miles west of Asheville, N.C., at a resort called the Glamping Collective. The private property has about five miles of private hiking trails, and its guests stay in geodesic domes and cabins.

Matt Bare, a founder of the Glamping Collective, said about eight acres of the 160-acre property have been developed, and the object happened to land on one of the hiking trails. “It could have been just about anywhere else on the property and no one would have ever seen it,” he said.

A member of the resort’s landscaping crew found the debris on May 22 while doing routine trail maintenance. Mr. Bare estimated that the object weighed about 100 pounds and was about 4 feet by 4 feet in size. He said that they quickly realized that the object had to have come from the sky because of its size and the remote location where it was found.