Dead SpaceX Rocket To Smash Into The Moon On Wednesday

A discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is set to collide with the moon on Wednesday, August 5, at 06:35 UTC, near Einstein Crater. This unplanned impact will create an 89-foot crater and launch a significant debris plume. While the collision itself won't be visible from Earth, the resulting dust cloud might be observable by advanced amateur astronomers in parts of North and South America. The 4,000 kg object, launched on January 15, 2025, has been drifting since carrying the Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1. This event underscores the increasing issue of space junk, especially as NASA plans future moonbases. Scientists view it as a valuable opportunity to study lunar impacts, with orbiters like NASA's LRO observing before and after.

A discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is set to collide with the moon on Wednesday, Aug. 5, in an unplanned impact that’s expected to create a fresh crater and send a towering plume of debris into space. The collision itself will occur on the moon’s sunlit surface and won’t be visible from Earth even in large telescopes, but the resulting dust cloud may be, according to new research published this week by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center. If so, it’s a very rare opportunity to witness the aftermath of an object striking the moon, though it also highlights the dangers of space junk as NASA prepares to build a moonbase.

The 45 ft. (13.8-meter) upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — SpaceX’s workhorse reusable rocket that has launched almost 700 times — was launched into space on Jan. 15, 2025, from Launch Complex 39A at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. It carried the Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 and the ispace RESILIENCE mission into space. It’s been drifting in space ever since, but was not intended to strike the moon. The 8,800 lb (4,000 kg) object, cataloged as 2025-010D, is predicted to hit the lunar surface at 06:35 UTC on Aug. 5, at approximately 5,400mph (8,700km/h) near Einstein Crater on the moon’s western limb. It could cause a crater roughly 89 feet (27 meters) across and 16 feet (5 meters) deep.

Space debris in orbit is on the rise, with about 35,000 objects now tracked by space surveillance networks, according to the European Space Agency. 2025-010D may pose no danger to humanity for now, but impacts on the moon could be massively consequential in the future if NASA and the China National Space Administration make good on plans for a permanent human presence on the lunar surface.

According to researchers, the impact flash could be as bright as magnitude +3, or so faint that even large telescopes won’t detect it. Either way, the flash is unlikely to be visible because the crash site is fully illuminated by sunlight and will likely last less than a second, so attention has shifted to the much larger debris plume expected to rise above the moon’s horizon. Modeling suggests that the impact is expected to excavate around 2.65 million pounds (1.2 million kilograms) of lunar regolith — roughly 150-200 times the rocket’s own mass. It could be visible for about 10 minutes, silhouetted against the darkness of space beyond the moon’s bright limb. The eastern half of North America and much of South America will have the best viewi...