Overview
- Ann Walter watched an SUV-sized box with NASA stickers descend into a neighbor’s wheat field near Edmonson, Texas, under a parachute she estimated at about 30 feet.
- Hale County Sheriff David Cochran said NASA officials contacted his office while searching for the missing equipment.
- The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility confirmed the payload was from a high-altitude balloon launch out of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, roughly 140 miles west.
- CSBF researchers arrived with a truck and trailer and recovered the hardware from the field.
- NASA did not provide immediate comment, with coverage noting the agency’s communications were constrained by the ongoing government shutdown.