May 13, 2024 06:00:00

Farmer confused after discovering 40kg piece thought to have been lost from space

As space development progresses, the danger of falling objects such as satellites and rockets cannot be ignored, and it

was reported that debris from the International Space Station destroyed a private home in the United States in April 2024. A local television station has reported that a part believed to be part of a satellite has been found in Canada.

Space junk? Farmers baffled after finding strange object in prairie field, Sask | CTV News
https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

From outer space? Farmers baffled after discovering wreckage in field | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40314299

Barry Sawchuk, a fifth-generation farmer in Ituna, Saskatchewan, Canada, discovered strange objects scattered in a corner of the approximately 10,000 acres (about 40 square kilometers) of farmland he farms with his wife and four sons on April 28, 2024.

It's common to find trash on farms, but this is the first time something like this has been found.

When Sawchuk brought the 100-pound piece home, he wondered if it was something from outer space.

'We believe it may be a satellite or part of something that has re-entered the atmosphere. It has char in places so you can tell it has burned up. The piece is carbon fibre composite with an aluminium honeycomb structure on top and another layer of carbon fibre composite on the back,' Sawchuk told local television station CTV News Regina.

According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at Harvard University in the United States, this is the trunk of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft used for the private space mission

Axiom-3 (AX-3) , which re-entered the atmosphere over Saskatchewan on February 26, 2024.

Part of the Axiom-3 Dragon trunk that reentered over Saskatchewan on Feb 26 has been found on the ground; regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-s...

— Jonathan McDowell ( @planet4589.bsky.social ) May 10, 2024 at 6:10

McDowell noted that the trajectory of the spacecraft's re-entry matches the location where the debris was found, and that the object found is very similar to the spacecraft's trunk.

The reentry trajectory of the Ax-3 trunk matches exactly
the location where the debris was found, and it strongly
resembles other Dragon trunk debris found after a reentry over Australia last year:

[image or embed]

— Jonathan McDowell ( @planet4589.bsky.social ) May 10, 2024 at 6:12

In 2022, similar debris was discovered on a sheep farm in Australia.

Possible SpaceX debris falls in Australia from Dragon spacecraft | Space
https://www.space.com/spacex-debris-fall-australia-crew-1-dragon-capsule

Below are images of the one found in Australia in 2022 (left) and the one found this time in Canada (right). They certainly look similar.

'We don't know where the debris will land on its trajectory straight through Saskatchewan, and it's pretty unpredictable because of things like atmospheric turbulence,' Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, told CTV News Regina.

CTV News Regina contacted the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which confirmed the debris found on Sawchuk's farm was not part of a plane, and the Canadian Space Agency told the station it was investigating the incident.