By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Officials of both SpaceX and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have confirmed that the sonic boom heard and felt across southwest Alabama and northwest Florida last Tuesday, December 17, was caused by a SpaceX Dragon supply craft returning from space on its way to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Such occurrences have been fairly common in different areas during the 31 trips the commercial craft has made, shuttling supplies and science experiments to and from the International Space Station. This time, the spacecraft’s reentry path took it to a landing spot off the Florida coast, just south of Panama City.
Officially, the “boom” came at 12:39 p.m. (CST). The sound waves created when the spacecraft tore through Earth’s atmosphere carried for miles and reportedly set off car alarms, rocked mobile homes and shook the foundations or rattled the windows of other structures across the area.
It also prompted a flurry of phone calls and Facebooks posts from individuals who were curious as to the source of the rare occurrence, including those from Atmore, Huxford, Nokomis and Robinsonville in Alabama and from Walnut Hill, Davisville and Century in Florida.
Cindy Tedder of McCullough was at home, recovering from a dental procedure, when the sonic eruption swept across her family’s property.
“I heard a pretty good ‘boom,’ and it shook the house,” she said. “I stepped out to make sure my daddy’s house (just a few yards away) was okay. I didn’t know what it was.”
She said her oldest daughter, Sissy Rolin, quickly made the SpaceX connection and helped forward through text messages any information that became available. Her youngest daughter, Adrienne, lives near Saraland and also heard and felt the shock waves from the incoming flight.
NASA officials confirmed in a press release that the unpiloted transport rocket, which began its journey home after undocking from the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module at 11:05 a.m., December 16, was the obvious source of the incident.
“At 1:39 p.m. EST, the unpiloted SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Florida, marking the return of the company’s 31st commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for NASA,” officials said. “The spacecraft carried back to Earth thousands of pounds of supplies and scientific experiments designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment.”
Published reports show similar sonic signatures have been created during the Dragon’s previous reentry flights during the time it has been making its round trips into outer space.
A note of local interest: Atmore-based Muskogee Technology, a division of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, reportedly manufactures a component of SpaceX’s interstellar cargo hauler.