SpaceX did not return a request for comment, and typically does not interact with news media.
The Crew-1 astronauts — comprised of NASA’s Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with Japan’s space agency — made a safe return aboard the main portion of the capsule, which splashed down off the coast of Florida before being hauled to safety by nearby recovery ships last year.
Australian media reported that the debris was initially identified by experts with the Australian Space Agency. The agency could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
NASA referred further questions to the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses and oversees commercial spaceflight operations in the United States. The FAA then referred questions to the US State Department, which could not immediately respond to a request comment.
Members of the public that believe they may have found a piece of space debris can reach out to SpaceX’s recovery hotline at 1-866-623-0234 or at recovery@spacex.com.
Typically, discarded pieces of space hardware fall to a watery grave in the ocean. But they do sometimes turn up on land.
SpaceX does not attempt to recover the second stage of its rockets, though it does land, refurbish and refly most of its first-stage rocket boosters, which are the largest part of the rocket and give the initial boost at liftoff. Dragon capsules ride to orbit sitting atop the rockets.
