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A nearly two-decades old bit of space junk has been found in the Australian outback.
A solid rocket motor casing from a U.S. Delta 2 launch vehicle nearly 18 years after it reentered was found last July during a routine muster of cattle on a three-million-acre pastoral property.
First spotted by air from a Cessna aircraft flying over the property, the debris was later identified using a serial number - traced to the motor casing of a Delta 2 booster used on June 12, 1990 to deliver the Indian INSAT-1D into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
According to NASA’s Orbital Debris Quarterly News, the object joins similar solid rocket motor casings found in Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Argentina during the past several years.
