The skies over Europe saw a dramatic fireball yesterday as debris from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket made an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and crashed into Poland.
According to the European Space Agency, the debris was from a Starlink launch on February 1, with debris from the rocket’s upper stage entering the atmosphere early in the morning on February 19:
A Falcon 9 upper stage (#62878), which was launched on 1 February 2025, reentered the atmosphere over Europe at approximately 04:46 CET this morning.Video credit: Ludi, taken from Leipzig Central Railway Station, Germany, and used with permission
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations.esa.int) 2025-02-19T11:43:15.238Z
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Although Falcon 9 rockets are designed to be reuseable, only the first stage or booster of the rocket should return to Earth — and that in a controlled manner, with the boosters either landing on a droneship, at a SpaceX facility, or in the ocean far from inhabited locations. The second stage or upper part of the rocket is the part which goes into orbit and deploys the payloads, which in this case were Starlink satellites. The upper stage should deorbit itself and safely burn up in the atmosphere, but in this case that failed to happen.
According to orbital expert Jonathan McDowell, an engine on the upper stage failed, causing the stage to re-enter the atmosphere over Northern Europe, traveling over Poland and Ukraine. A man in Poland even found what is thought to be a piece of debris from the rocket in the yard behind his warehouse, according to the BBC. While there are no reports of anyone being harmed by the debris, the Polish Space Agency is working to verify whether the burned up tank did indeed come from a SpaceX rocket.
The debris was also caught by various amateur skywatchers, visible in Germany and Holland:
Well, thats a first, even my own camera caugh this Falcon 9 upperstage re-entry, also featuring my @satnogs.bsky.social antenna 🙂
— DutchSpace (@dutchspace.bsky.social) 2025-02-19T12:50:23.465Z
Similar problems with falling rocket debris have occurred with Chinese rockets in the past, with then-NASA administrator Bill Nelson criticizing China for letting its rockets undergo uncontrolled return to Earth. The controversy around the Chinese rockets is that some of the Long March models do not have an adequate plan for preventing potentially dangerous re-entry and China chose not to share information about the trajectory of the debris. In the case of the recent SpaceX rocket, the stage was intended to deorbit safely but it suffered from an issue which prevented this.
Still, space debris is an increasing problem, with experts warning that the breakup of rocket parts and satellites during reentry could be a danger to aviation and potentially a danger to people on the ground as well. Researchers have called for spacefaring states to mandate safe controlled rocket re-entries to prevent casualties or damage to structures.