SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage believed to have crashed into the Moon

A four-ton upper stage of a SpaceX rocket is believed to have hit the moon at 5,400 mph. The SpaceX rocket launched a pair of lunar landers last year, but the company's scientists say a combination of solar activity and gravity put it on a collision course with the moon. Geoff Bennett discussed larger concerns about lunar litter with science correspondent Miles O'Brien.

A hefty four-tonne piece from a SpaceX rocket has made its way to the moon, crashing after an eighteen-month journey in the cosmos. This second stage of the rocket hit the western limb at Einstein crater with considerable force. Currently, lunar satellites are on standby to document the impact and examine the debris. Meanwhile, conversations are underway between NASA and SpaceX to address the risk of future impacts.

NEW YORK, United States — Part of a SpaceX rocket approximately the size of a bus slammed into the Moon as predicted, scientists said Wednesday, after a telescope in Chile captured evidence of a stream of debris. The collision, which was not intentional, posed no danger to Earth, and is expected to have left a lunar crater in its wake that space agencies including Nasa still hope to document. Scientists anticipated the Falcon 9 upper stage was going to strike the lunar surface at approximately 0635 GMT on Wednesday. READ: SpaceX cleared to fly Falcon 9 rocket after landing mishap And […]...Keep on reading: Castaway SpaceX rocket stage crashed into Moon, scientists say

A piece of a SpaceX rocket weighing four tonnes (4.4 tons) was believed to have unintentionally crashed into the moon on Wednesday, a collision that posed no danger to Earth but is expected to leave behind a lunar crater.

A SpaceX rocket piece floating in space since last year was expected to have smashed into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning, though the impact was unlikely to be confirmed for at least several hours. The school-bus-size object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a lunar […]

A discarded upper stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has likely impacted the Moon’s surface, with scientists tracking the collision near the Einstein Crater on the lunar far side. The event is estimated to have occurred at approximately 12:05 pm IST (2.35am EDT), though official confirmation is still pending as space agencies analyse fresh orbital imagery.According to preliminary tracking data, the object’s trajectory had been predicted with remarkable precision, narrowing the impact window to within seconds and a few hundred metres. Observations from lunar orbiters in the coming days are expected to confirm the exact impact site.What exactly hit the Moon?The object was not an intact rocket but the Falcon 9’s upper stage - the second segment responsible for carrying payloads into higher orbits after the first stage separates and returns to Earth.Falcon 9 moon crash update 3: while it’s almost certain that SpaceX booster has already collided with the Moon, there is no official or verified confirmation on it yet.There are no videos or pictures yet, as no one has been able to see it from the Earth. The rumours about… pic.twitter.com/rCsNxJEiGG— Durgesh Kaushik (@durgesh_kaushik) August 5, 2026 This particular stage, measuring about 12 metres in length and weighing roughly 4,500 kilograms, was launched on January 15, 2025. It carried payloads including Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost-1 and ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission 2 lunar landers.Once its mission was complete, the stage was left in a high-energy orbit between Earth and the Moon, eventually becoming space debris.Why did the crash take so long?Unlike controlled re-entries, the rocket stage remained in an unstable orbit for nearly 19 months. Over time, gravitational forces from the Earth, Moon, and Sun - combined with subtle effects like solar radiation pressure - gradually altered its trajectory.These cumulative perturbations eventually pushed the stage onto a collision course with the Moon. In an earlier statement, SpaceX confirmed that the stage had been 'passivated', meaning residual fuel was vented to reduce explosion risk, but a controlled disposal burn was not feasible due to its trajectory.Impact energy and expected crater formationScientists estimate the stage struck the lunar surface at nearly 8,700 kilometres per hour. The impact would have released energy equivalent to around three tonnes of TNT.Due to the Moon’s lack of atmosphere, the object would have hit the surface at full velocity, carving out a fresh crater estimated to be between 20 and 30 metres wide. The collision is also expected to have ejected large amounts of lunar regolith, potentially displacing over a million kilograms of dust and debris.Why this crash matters to scientistsResearchers view this event as a rare scientific opportunity. Unlike natural meteorite impacts, the characteristics of this object — including its mass, velocity, and trajectory — were well documented in advance.This makes it possible to study the impact in a controlled context, helping scientists refine models of crater formation and improve techniques for locating impact sites. Such data is expected to contribute to future lunar seismology research and mission planning.Global space agencies monitoring the aftermathSeveral space agencies are now working to confirm the impact site and analyse its effects. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is expected to capture before-and-after imagery of the region, while South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter will also contribute observational data.India’s Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, currently in lunar orbit, may provide additional imagery to help identify the newly formed crater.NASA officials have indicated that confirmation could take several hours to days, depending on orbital passes and imaging conditions.While tracking data strongly suggests that the impact has already occurred, scientists are awaiting visual confirmation from orbiting spacecraft. Once verified, the event will mark another instance of human-made objects unintentionally colliding with the Moon - offering both scientific insight and a reminder of the growing presence of space debris beyond Earth orbit.