An empty upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket slammed into the moon at approximately 5,400 mph (8,700 km/h) on Wednesday, August 5. The 45-foot, 4-ton cylindrical hardware—comparable in size to a five-story building and weighing as much as a heavy-duty pickup truck—was predicted to hit the lunar surface after drifting in space for more than a year.
Falcon 9 Upper Stage Slams Into Moon
The mission originated in January 2025, when the Falcon 9 launched from Florida to hoist two private lunar landers: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience. While the lower stage of the Falcon 9 returned to Earth for a controlled landing, the upper stage remained in orbit. After completing its delivery work, the discarded stage drifted in a long-term orbit before gravitational tugs from the sun and moon, combined with solar activity and solar wind, accidentally altered its path onto a collision course.
Observations and Search for Visual Confirmation
Scientists and astronomers tracked the dead rocket stage as it headed toward a dusty, barren patch near the Einstein Crater on the moon’s western limb, near the edge of the near and far sides. Bill Gray, an astronomer who writes Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects, had predicted the impact trajectory. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed on August 4 that the stage had a 100% chance of impacting the moon.
Because the moon lacks an atmosphere, the hardware had no chance of burning up before striking the surface. Although no one observed the actual collision at 2:35 a.m. ET, telescope observations yielded indirect detection. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile detected a stream of sodium and lithium stretching for tens of kilometers into space for at least five to 10 minutes following the impact. Boston University’s Carl Schmidt stated he was 100% certain his team’s observations revealed signs of the debris plume.
Visual confirmation of the impact site requires orbiting spacecraft. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter were tasked with photographing the impact area before and after the crash to locate the moon’s newest crater. NASA stated that receiving images from the orbiters and processing them for public release could take until the following week.
Scientific Implications and Lunar Litter Concerns
Experts estimate that the impact created a crater roughly 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep near the Einstein and Bell craters, scattering dust and rock outward in a plume. Nicholas Schmerr, a professor of geology at the University of Maryland and planetary seismologist, noted that the impact likely produced a detectable seismic event, or moonquake, though no active seismic stations currently record on the moon to capture the tremor. Historically, NASA deliberately crashed Apollo-era Saturn V third stages and lunar modules into the moon to generate seismic data for studying the lunar interior.
The unplanned crash has renewed discussions regarding space junk and lunar traffic. With nations such as the U.S. and China planning future astronaut missions, experts warn that lunar debris could become a growing problem. Retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell pointed out that future impacts throwing up massive dust clouds will become less acceptable as lunar activity increases. Meanwhile, NASA noted that meteoroids carrying roughly the same impact energy strike the moon about every six days, posing no danger to Earth while providing data to refine space-tracking techniques.
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