Samsung's 'space selfie' satellite lands in someone's garden in Michigan

Samsung’s "space selfie" satellite shocked a US resident this weekend after it landed in the garden of her property.

The planned landing followed Samsung Europe's campaign that invited people to take "space selfies" by sending the company their photos, which there then beamed to a satellite carrying Samsung Galaxy phones.

The apparatus was launched on 23 October from North Dakota and had been due to land later this week.

Nancy Mumby-Welke heard a loud crash outside her farmland home in Gratiot County, Michigan, at the weekend and posted a photo of the payload, which had a Samsung logo.

The device also carried a logo of South Dakota-based high-altitude balloon manufacturer Raven Industries, which later collected the apparatus at Mumby-Welke's home.

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Mumby-Welby commented on Facebook: "Unbelievable, look what just fell out of the sky and 911 is baffled and it’s caught up in our tree."

The campaign was the first to be commissioned by Samsung’s chief marketing officer for Europe, Benjamin Braun, who joined the electronics giant from Audi earlier this year.

Created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty London, the payload carried a Samsung phone containing a selfie of model and actress Cara Delevingne and was supposed to be the world’s first "selfie to space".

A spokeswoman for Samsung said: "Early on Saturday, Samsung Europe’s 'SpaceSelfie' balloon came back down to Earth. During this planned descent of the balloon to land in the US, weather conditions resulted in an early soft landing in a selected rural area. No injuries occurred and the balloon was subsequently retrieved."