The sky over Europe see a dramatic fireball yesterday as dust from a SpaceX Falcon 9 Eruca sativa made an uncontrolled re - entry into Earth ’s air and crash into Poland .
According to the European Space Agency , the debris was from a Starlink launching on February 1 , with debris from the rocket engine ’s upper stage entering the aura too soon in the morning on February 19 :
A Falcon 9 upper stage ( # 62878 ) , which was launch on 1 February 2025 , reentered the standard pressure over Europe at some 04:46 CET this morning . Video credit : Ludi , taken from Leipzig Central Railway Station , Germany , and used with permission
& mdash;ESA Operations ( @esaoperations.esa.int)2025 - 02 - 19T11:43:15.238Z
Although Falcon 9 rocket are design to be reuseable , only the first stage or lifter of the rocket should give to Earth — and that in a control style , with the booster amplifier either land on a droneship , at a SpaceX facility , or in the ocean far from inhabited locations . The second microscope stage or upper part of the rocket is the part which goes into compass and deploy the payloads , which in this causa were Starlink artificial satellite . The upper stage should deorbit itself and safely cauterise up in the standard atmosphere , but in this caseful that failed to happen .
According to orbital expertJonathan McDowell , an locomotive on the upper stage failed , have the phase to re - accede the atmosphere over Northern Europe , move over Poland and Ukraine . A man in Poland even found what is recall to be a part of debris from the rocket in the yard behind his storage warehouse , according to theBBC . While there are no report of anyone being harmed by the debris , thePolish Space Agencyis working to verify whether the burn up armored combat vehicle did indeed do from a SpaceX rocket .
The junk was also caught by various inexpert skywatchers , visible inGermanyand Holland :
Well , that s a first , even my own camera caugh this Falcon 9 upperstage re - entry , also featuring my @satnogs.bsky.social aerial :)
& mdash;DutchSpace ( @dutchspace.bsky.social)2025 - 02 - 19T12:50:23.465Z
alike problem with falling rocket rubble have occurred withChinese rocket in the past , with then - NASA administrator Bill Nelsoncriticizing Chinafor allow its garden rocket undergo uncontrolled return to Earth . The arguing around the Chinese rockets is that some of the Long March models do not have an adequate plan for preventing potentially dangerous re - ingress and China choose not to share information about the trajectory of the debris . In the case of the recent SpaceX rocket , the stagecoach was mean to deorbit safely but it suffered from an publication which prevented this .
Still , space dust is an increasing problem , with experts warn that the dissolution of rocket salad parts and planet during reentry could be adanger to aviationand potentially adanger to people on the groundas well . researcher have called for spacefaring province to mandate safe controlled projectile re - entries to prevent casualties or damage to structure .
