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SpaceX, the aerospace and space travel company founded by Elon Musk, confirmed on Wednesday that the rocket debris discovered last month on a Cumberland Island National Seashore beach came from one of its rockets.
"SpaceX worked with local authorities to recover the hardware," SpaceX spokesman James Gleeson said in an email.
Clay George, senior wildlife biologist, Department of Natural Resources of Georgia, discovered space debris on September 9 while he was in Cumberland to examine a dead dolphin. Not knowing what he had discovered, he sent photos to other people in the department and to Cumberland Island National Seashore.
"Do you have any idea of the nature of this debris that was washed away by Cumberland?" he wrote. "See the pictures attached, it sounds like something expensive considering the amount of carbon fiber and machined stainless steel parts."
The piece of about 20 feet long seemed to be part of the rocket fairing, the protective cone that surrounds a payload. It is designed to come off the ocean after a launch. SpaceX has launched ten Falcon 9 rockets from Florida this year before September.
Gleeson said SpaceX was working on the recovery of its propellers and spacecraft.
"We are also actively trying to recover the payload fairing of the Falcon 9 on the west coast with our recovery vessel, Mr Steven, which has recently been upgraded with a net four times larger," he wrote. . "No other company or space agency has yet attempted to recover a refit.It is a very difficult challenge.SpaceX will continue to try to recover it in the future, as we learn how to bring back the fairings and reuse them are important steps towards the complete and rapid reuse of rockets ".
FAA spokesman Hank Price said the FAA regulates SpaceX but has redirected Cumberland's debris inquiries to the company.
"Please contact SpaceX to find out … what happened to the SpaceX debris that failed on Cumberland," he wrote in an e-mail response.
Camden County is currently trying to develop its own commercial spaceport. A draft environmental impact statement for the project, released in the spring, collected more than 15,000 comments, mostly negative.
"The debris discovery and Camden HIA are two separate and unrelated activities," Price said in an e-mail. "The debris originated from a Florida-based launch and does not affect the process of reporting environmental impact of Camden currently overseen by the FAA."
But Steve Weinkle, a Camden resident who criticized the project and made public the discovery of the Cumberland rockets after Camden and federal officials quietly removed the debris, said the incident was a reminder that the rockets needed go somewhere. The island of Cumberland would be under the trajectory of any rocket launched from the proposed Camden Spaceport location on the mainland.
"Having a wreck in the space, even if it's a routine wreck, is not good for their story," Weinkle said.
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