{"id":17573,"date":"2021-04-02T22:09:42","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T14:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-rocket-debris-recovered-from-central-washington-farm-after-fiery-fall\/"},"modified":"2021-04-02T22:09:42","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T14:09:42","slug":"spacex-rocket-debris-recovered-from-central-washington-farm-after-fiery-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-rocket-debris-recovered-from-central-washington-farm-after-fiery-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX rocket debris recovered from Central Washington farm after fiery fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_612802\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-612802\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-612802\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210402-tank-630x279.jpg\" alt=\"SpaceX pressure tank\" width=\"630\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210402-tank-630x279.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210402-tank-1260x558.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210402-tank-768x340.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210402-tank-1536x680.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210402-tank-2048x907.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-612802\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Falcon 9 pressure tank is loaded up for transport after recovery from a Grant County farm. (Grant County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The atmospheric re-entry and breakup of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket upper stage created a fiery display in the skies above the Pacific Northwest a week ago, but not all of those shooting stars burned up on the way down.<\/p>\n<p>At least one big piece of the rocket \u2014 a roughly 5-foot-long composite-overwrapped pressure vessel \u2014 fell onto private property in southwest Grant County in Central Washington, the county sheriff\u2019s office reported today in a tweet.<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Foreman, a spokesman for the sheriff\u2019s office, told GeekWire that the property owner left a message reporting the debris last weekend. Based on the reports about March 25\u2019s meteor show, SpaceX\u2019s rocket re-entry loomed as the likeliest cause for the commotion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe sheriff\u2019s office checked it out on Monday, and SpaceX staff came over on Tuesday and retrieved it,\u201d Foreman said.<\/p>\n<p>He was unaware of any other reports of fallen rocket debris \u2014 and in its tweet, the sheriff\u2019s office made clear that it considered the case closed. \u201cMedia and treasure hunters: we are not disclosing specifics,\u201d it said. \u201cThe property owner simply wants to be left alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve reached out to SpaceX and will update this report with anything we hear back.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Scientists and onlookers react to rocket debris streaking over PNW sky\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oCbQQ4HIKWg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Composite-overwrapped pressure vessels, or COPVs, are standard components in Falcon 9 rockets. They\u2019re designed to hold the helium gas that\u2019s used to pressurize propellant tanks. COPVs are likely candidates to survive re-entry because they\u2019re relatively lightweight and heat-resistant.<\/p>\n<p>If SpaceX\u2019s Starlink satellite launch on March 4 had gone completely by the book, the pressure vessel would probably have fallen into the ocean without notice. But the second stage\u2019s deorbit burn didn\u2019t work out as planned, and so the fiery plunge occurred two weeks after launch, over Oregon and Washington state rather than the unobserved sea. (The first-stage booster, in contrast, flew itself back to a drone ship in the Atlantic minutes after launch, as planned.)<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first time a COPV tank has caused a rocket ruckus: Five years ago, a launch-pad anomaly that led the loss of a Falcon 9 rocket and its multimilllion-dollar satellite payload was traced to a COPV breach. That led to a redesign of the tank to make it sturdier \u2014 and arguably, more likely to survive re-entry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Falcon 9 pressure tank is loaded up for transport after recovery from a Grant County farm. (Grant County Sheriff\u2019s Office) The atmospheric re-entry and breakup of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket upper stage created a fiery display in the skies above the Pacific Northwest a week ago, but not all of those shooting stars [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,4599,316],"class_list":["post-17573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-9","tag-meteors","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}