Enlarge / This cylindrical object, a few inches in size, fell through the roof of Alejandro Otero's home in Florida last month. (credit: Alejandro Otero on X)

A few weeks ago, something from the heavens came crashing through the roof of Alejandro Otero's home, and NASA is on the case.

In all likelihood, this nearly 2-pound object came from the International Space Station. Otero said it tore through the roof and both floors of his two-story house in Naples, Florida.

Otero wasn't home at the time, but his son was there. A Nest home security camera captured the sound of the crash at 2:34 pm local time (19:34 UTC) on March 8. That's an important piece of information because it is a close match for the time—2:29 pm EST (19:29 UTC)—that US Space Command recorded the reentry of a piece of space debris from the space station. At that time, the object was on a path over the Gulf of Mexico, heading toward southwest Florida.

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. (credit: NASA/SpaceX)

Upgrades at SpaceX's most-used launch pad in Florida got a trial run Thursday with the liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon cargo ship heading for the International Space Station.

SpaceX's Cargo Dragon spacecraft launched at 4:55 pm EDT (20:55 UTC) Thursday from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission, known as CRS-30, is SpaceX's 30th resupply mission to the space station since 2012.

The automated Dragon supply ship took off on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, heading for a monthlong stay at the International Space Station, where it will deliver more than 6,000 pounds of hardware, fresh food, and experiments for the lab's seven-person crew.

Enlarge / In March 2021, the International Space Station's robotic arm released a cargo pallet with nine expended batteries. (credit: NASA)

A bundle of depleted batteries from the International Space Station careened around Earth for almost three years before falling out of orbit and plunging back into the atmosphere Friday. Most of the trash likely burned up during reentry, but it's possible some fragments may have reached Earth's surface intact.

Larger pieces of space junk regularly fall to Earth on unguided trajectories, but they're usually derelict satellites or spent rocket stages. This involved a pallet of batteries from the space station with a mass of more than 2.6 metric tons (5,800 pounds). NASA intentionally sent the space junk on a path toward an unguided reentry.

Naturally self-cleaning

Sandra Jones, a NASA spokesperson, said the agency "conducted a thorough debris analysis assessment on the pallet and has determined it will harmlessly reenter the Earth’s atmosphere." This was, by far, the most massive object ever tossed overboard from the International Space Station.

Enlarge / A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off with the Crew-8 mission, sending three NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut on a six-month expedition on the International Space Station. (credit: Photo by Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images)

SpaceX's oldest Crew Dragon spacecraft launched Sunday night on its fifth mission to the International Space Station, and engineers are crunching data to see if the fleet of Dragons can safely fly as many as 15 times.

It has been five years since SpaceX launched the first Crew Dragon spacecraft on an unpiloted test flight to the space station and nearly four years since SpaceX's first astronaut mission took off in May 2020. Since then, SpaceX has put its clan of Dragons to use ferrying astronauts and cargo to and from low-Earth orbit.

Now, it's already time to talk about extending the life of the Dragon spaceships. SpaceX and NASA, which shared the cost of developing the Crew Dragon, initially certified each capsule for five flights. Crew Dragon Endeavour, the first in the Dragon fleet to carry astronauts, is now flying for the fifth time.

Enlarge / Boeing's Starliner crew module for the upcoming Crew Flight Test was mated with the spacecraft's service module last year in Florida. (credit: Boeing/Deborah Circelli)

We've heard this before, but Boeing appears to be a couple of months from finally launching astronauts into orbit aboard the commercial CST-100 Starliner crew capsule.

It was about two months prior to this mission's previous launch date last July when Boeing and NASA officials decided to put a hold on launch preparations. During their final reviews to certify Starliner for flight nearly a year ago, engineers discovered two technical issues that somehow escaped detection for years.

One of these issues involved parts of Starliner's parachute deployment system that did not meet required safety specifications. The other was a revelation that Boeing installed flammable tape wrapped around wiring bundles throughout the spacecraft, creating a potential fire hazard. These were the latest in a line of technical problems that have plagued the Starliner program, delaying the new spacecraft's first test flight with astronauts from 2017 until this year.