Last night, from Tuesday to Wednesday, there was an uncontrolled entry into the atmosphere of the FALCON 9 R/B carrier missile. As confirmed by the Space safety Department of the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), a associate of a rocket weighing about 4 tonnes came from the Space X Starlink Group 11-4 mission, which took off from Vandenberg Air Base in California on 1 February 2025.
According to the information provided by POLSA, entry into the atmosphere occurred between 04:46-4:48 and 19 February 2025. Press officer of the Poznań police, podkom. Łukasz Paterski, reported that at about 9:20 a.m. the officers received information about uncovering an unidentified object resembling a reservoir on the premises of 1 of the companies in the Podpoznań Komorniki. Officers from the mineral-pyrotechnical diagnosis group and the chemical-organic rescue group were called to the scene. Fortunately, no 1 suffered from this incident.
Karol Wójcicki, astronomy popularizer, who runs the Facebook profile “With his head in the stars”, believes that most likely the remains of the second associate of the Falcon 9 rocket burned in the atmosphere over Poland, and the found object looks like a COPV tank (composite force tank), which fell on 2 April 2021 to a farm in central Washington State. Wójcicki explained that it was a composite force tank utilized in the Falcon 9 rocket to store helium under advanced pressure. He added that COPV tanks are made of a light metallic core wrapped in carbon fibres, which gives advanced durability at low weight.
Space X improved the construction of COPV tanks after the Falcon 9 detonation in 2016, expanding the safety and reliability of the full system. Wójcicki pointed out that the changes in the construction made the COPV tanks safer and more resistant to utmost conditions prevailing during the launch and flight of the rocket. "As you can see, they are better at going through the atmosphere. So we have confirmation of the decline of the remains of the SpaceX rocket in Poland!” he wrote.
Wójcicki besides recalled that the second phase of the Falcon 9 rocket is liable for carrying the charge into the mark orbit, after which it most frequently undergoes controlled deorbitation. He added that Space X usually applies this procedure over maritime areas. "Why did deorbitation happen this time over Europe? hard to say. In the case of missions carrying loads into higher orbits, erstwhile there is not adequate fuel for deorbitation, the second degree remains in orbit, gradually losing altitude until natural entry into the atmosphere," he wrote.
The trajectory of the flight of this facility was known to POLSA and the services liable in Europe (EUSST) for monitoring the hazard of entering the Earth's atmosphere of artificial space objects. As stressed, POLSA DBK constantly monitors and analyses threats in space from artificial objects, including space missiles. POLSA informs about the current situation in space and the identified threats of applicable services and institutions in the country. Situational reports on the prediction of entry into the atmosphere and collision of satellites in orbit are produced and are supplied systematically, among others, to the Ministry of improvement and Technology, Ministry of National Defence, Ministry of Interior and Administration, Ministry of Infrastructure, Government safety Centre.
According to POLSA data, in 2022 there were over 5,465 artificial space objects in orbit around the Earth, including over 3,372 satellites in geostationary orbit. Therefore, space monitoring is simply a key component in ensuring safety and stableness in space.
It is worth noting that POLSA is 1 of the most crucial institutions in Poland liable for monitoring and analysing threats in space. This institution is constantly working with global organisations specified as ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA (American Space Agency), to guarantee safety and stableness in space.
In view of this event, further analysis and investigation on details of the entry into the atmosphere of the FALCON 9 R/B carrier rocket is expected. The results of these studies may supply fresh information on threats in space and aid to improve the monitoring and safety systems in space.
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Space puzzle: FALCON 9 R/B carrier rocket has fallen in Poland
