SpaceX Rocket Stage Set to Impact the Moon This Week
The upper stage of a SpaceX rocket, left in space after launching two lunar landers, is on a collision course with the Moon. It is expected to crash into the lunar surface this Wednesday.
The upper stage of a SpaceX rocket, which remained in space after launching two lunar landers more than a year and a half ago, is on a collision course with the Moon. The upper stage is expected to crash into the lunar surface this coming Wednesday, creating a new crater and causing a cloud of dust and rock fragments — a spectacle that scientists and astronomy enthusiasts look forward to observing.
Space debris tracking expert Bill Gray estimates that the impact will occur at a speed of about 8,700 km/h in the Einstein crater area, near the western, illuminated edge of the Moon. Scientists on the American continent intend to try to observe the collision, which will take place at night in these regions.
Although scientists are not particularly worried about this specific piece of space debris, the case highlights the growing threat posed by the accumulation of objects in orbit around the Earth and in space in general. "The space up there is getting more and more crowded," said Gray, who plans to watch the results of the impact from New Brunswick, Canada.
SpaceX never intended to hit the Moon with the rocket. However, space experts said the collision could have been avoided if the upper stage had been diverted into an orbit around the Sun. In fact, this will be only the second time that a decommissioned rocket stage is known to have accidentally crashed into the Moon. In 2022, a piece of a Chinese rocket created a pair of craters on the far side of the Moon.
Fortunately for astronomers, the upcoming collision will occur on the near side of the Moon, visible from Earth, with a force equivalent to the energy released in an explosion of about 3 tons of TNT. According to experts, the impact flash, which will last less than a second, will likely be too faint to be seen from Earth. However, the cloud of material that will be ejected as a result of the collision may rise to a height of several kilometers above the lunar surface and remain visible to telescopes for many long minutes.
"Gravity on the Moon is low and there is no wind to disperse the dust," said Benjamin Fernando of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who is encouraging both professional and amateur astronomers to follow the event. "Part of the reason we are interested in this event is the desire to understand how much space debris impacts could pose a danger to astronauts in the future," he added.
"This collision will not be a problem," wrote astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. "But in the future, when there are permanent bases on the Moon, similar collisions will become a problem, and we must not leave rocket stages in chaotic orbits of this kind."
Fernando estimates that the impact crater will be about 27 meters in diameter and about 5 meters deep — too small to be noticed from Earth, but large enough for spacecraft orbiting the Moon to observe it. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the South Korean lunar orbiter Danuri will document the impact area before and after the collision. According to Benjamin Fernando and his team, Danuri will pass just a few kilometers from the upper stage of the rocket about two minutes before the impact.
The abandoned rocket — which is about 12 meters long and weighs about 4,500 kilograms — launched two private lunar landers on January 15, 2025. One of them, Blue Ghost by Firefly Aerospace, became the first private spacecraft to successfully complete a landing on the Moon. The second, the lander of the Japanese company ispace, crashed.
Since meteoroids and other natural objects usually hit the Moon without prior warning, scientists say that much can be learned by observing collisions of man-made objects, whose trajectory is well known. During the Apollo program, NASA intentionally crashed rocket stages and lander components into the Moon to perform seismic measurements. Decades later, in 2009, NASA intentionally crashed the LCROSS spacecraft and the upper stage of the rocket that carried it, as part of a search for ice near the Moon's south pole.
Now that the Moon is becoming a major destination for space missions, scientists say it is vital to improve space debris tracking and space traffic management before astronauts and critical equipment arrive from Earth. The United States and China are in a race to land astronauts on the Moon in the coming years. Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin are competing to provide the lunar lander for the astronauts of NASA's Artemis 4 mission, whose names have not yet been released.
