by NASA has confirmed suspicions that the strange object that crashed into a Florida home last month did indeed come from the International Space Station (ISS). The agency analyzed the cylindrical object after it tore through the roof and two floors of a house in Naples on March 8th and established that it came from a cargo pallet of aging batteries that was released from the ISS back in 2021.
More specifically, NASA revealed in a blog post on Monday that the offending object was a support component used to mount the batteries on the 5,800-pound (2,630-kilogram) pallet released from the space station. Made from Inconel (a metal alloy that can withstand extreme environments like high temperature, pressure, or mechanical loads), the recovered stanchion weighs 1.6 pounds and measures four inches high by 1.6 inches in diameter — a smidge smaller than a standard can of Red Bull.
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It was made of inconel! That alloy of nickel and chromium is designed NOT to burn up. They used it to make the combustion chambers and bells of the Saturn V F-1 engines because it doesn’t burn up.
What in hell did they expect to happen to large hunks of that alloy on reentry?
I first learned of this alloy in researching the pre-combustion chambers of the indirect injection diesel engine in my van. Those chambers are inconel inserts into the cast iron heads, there specifically to not burn up over millions of diesel fuel explosions.
