A metallic ring weighing half a ton has fallen on a village in the African nation, with no casualties or damage reported on the ground
The Kenya Space Agency has dismissed a media report suggesting that the country demanded compensation over a sizable circular object – apparently a spacecraft fragment – that fell on a remote village in the African nation earlier this week. The authorities said a probe into where the metallic ring came from was still underway.
In a post on X on Friday, the agency stressed that “investigations into the object’s origin are still ongoing, and no official statement has been issued linking the debris to the Indian Space Research Organisation or any specific space mission.” The agency advised the public to “await official findings.”
Earlier in the day, the Nation Africa media outlet claimed that the country had demanded compensation from India, and that the debris was from New Delhi’s Space Docking Experiment, Spadex.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Kenya Space Agency said that a “metallic object… fell from the skies and landed in Mukuku Village” on Monday. The ring measuring approximately 2.5 meters in diameter and weighing about 500 kilograms is said to be a “separation ring from a launch vehicle (rocket).”
The agency emphasized that the “object poses no immediate threat to safety.”
Panic in Kenya as half-ton glowing space debris crashes into village.
Loud blast sparks bomb fears before object identified as rocket junk
Kenyan Space Agency investigating origin of object identified as launch rocket’s separation ring.
The agency said the incident represented an “isolated case,” and that officials were conducting an investigation within the “established framework under the International Space law.”
Kenya’s NTV broadcaster quoted an eyewitness as describing a “loud bang,” which he at first mistook for the sound of a car crash on a nearby road.
Villagers then saw a large, glowing, circular object descending from the sky, the report said. According to NTV, the debris landed in a thicket.
With the number of spacecraft and satellite launches growing, more than 14,000 tons of human-made material had accumulated in low Earth orbit, the European Space Agency estimated last year. Researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia believe that debris and other space junk make up approximately a third of that mass.
Last March, a massive chunk of debris from the International Space Station fell on a home in Florida, and several metal fragments from a SpaceX capsule were found on a Canadian farm the following month.
An incident strikingly similar to the latest occurrence in Kenya took place in India back in April 2022, with a large metal ring falling in a rural area.
