“A fragment of a space body.” That is, according to the Kenya Space Agency (KSA), the object that fell on the village of Mukuku, in Makueni county, in the south of the country, on December 30. It is a large metal wheel about 2.5 meters in diameter and weighing half a ton that according to witnesses fell from the sky “red hot.” After an investigation, the KSA has determined that these are surely parts of a rocket, although the remains have been recovered “for further investigation.”
However, not everyone thinks the same. Jonathan McDowell, a veteran skywatcher and reentry tracker who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Inside Outer Space that “there is no obvious space candidate. I’m not convinced it didn’t come from an airplane. “I see no obvious evidence of re-entry warming.”
On the other hand, Darren McKnight, space debris expert at LeoLabs, points out that sometimes arriving space debris is covered by a kind of ‘sacrificial anode’ – the material with which these parts are coated to prevent corrosion. which burns upon reentry and allows the raw object to survive almost entire contact with the atmosphere.
Following the discovery of a metal fragment of a space object in Mukuku village, Makueni County, the Kenya Space Agency issued the following statement, posted on X (formerly Twitter):
Following the discovery of a metallic fragment of a space object in Mukuku Village, Makueni County, the Kenya Space Agency has issued the following statement. Read more for details on the incident, preliminary findings, and next steps. pic.twitter.com/n8gsvoKku4
— Kenya Space Agency (@SpaceAgencyKE) January 1, 2025
“The Agency wishes to clarify that the object, a metal ring approximately 2.5 meters in diameter and weighing about 500 kg, is a fragment of a space object,” they point out in the letter. «Preliminary assessments indicate that the fallen object is a separation ring from a launch vehicle (rocket). Such objects are generally designed to burn up as they re-enter Earth’s atmosphere or to fall onto unoccupied areas, such as the oceans. “This is an isolated case, which the Agency will investigate and address using the framework established under the International Space Law.”
Possible suspects
An early investigation by Inside Outer Space of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Debris Reentry Studies (CORDS) reentry database suggested a possible relationship with the body of an Atlas Centaur rocket launched in 2004. It was predicted that that remainder of the rocket body, labeled as object 28385, would re-enter on December 30 of this year at 21:33 UTC ± 2 hours, with a flight path that would take it over Africa.
The Atlas Centaur lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on August 31, 2004 carrying a classified USA-179 satellite. According to NASA’s Space Science Data Coordination Archive, USA-179 is a US military satellite of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), launched by an Atlas 2AS rocket from Cape Canaveral. It was the last flight of the Atlas 2 models.
However, re-entry tracker McDowell said data from the US Space Force showed that rocket stage 28385 re-entered over Lake Baikal in Russia, so further investigation is still needed.
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