A wayward piece of NASA equipment that crash landed onto a farmer’s field was a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience for a rural family.
Ann Vincent Walter said she spotted a large parachute looming above her West Texas home on October 2.
The family has since posted a series of photos on Facebook with the cosmic equipment behind them in a field.
NASA reportedly told Ann that the equipment had been blown off course after being launched from the Fort Sumner launch facility.
Ann recalled in a Facebook post how her son Hayden was the first to spot the unexpected visitor.
She wrote: ‘[He] yells in the house and says to hurry and come here! I was like omg what? Haha we both saw this parachute/balloon in the sky.
‘We took videos and pics but continued getting ready for the day. Hayden stated he believes that it landed somewhere because it was gone from the sky.’
Later that day, another family member found the equipment, and Ann was allowed to ditch work that morning to visit the downed hardware.
She added: ‘They gladly let me go so I could see the equipment and experience this once-in-a-lifetime situation.
‘What a cool memory and experience.’
Ann said she contacted the Hale County Sheriff’s Office, where officials had also been called by NASA about a piece of missing equipment.
A NASA researcher reportedly spoke to Ann to explain what had happened.
The equipment had reportedly been launched by the Columbia Scientific Balloon Team as part of a series of experiments aimed at improving the accuracy of telescopes.
Hale County Sheriff David Cochran confirmed that NASA officials called his office last week in search of the equipment, according to ABC News.
A launch schedule on the balloon facility’s website shows a series of launches from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, about 140 miles west of where the equipment crashed.
On average, a total of between 200 and 400 tracked objects enter Earth’s atmosphere every year, according to research by the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service.
But the organisation added: ‘Human populations live on a small percentage of the Earth’s total surface area.
‘So any objects that do not burn up and disintegrate upon atmosphere re-entry are likely to fall into the ocean (which covers over 70% of the surface of the Earth) or a sparsely populated land area.’
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