Space X Crashing Into The Moon

A spent SpaceX rocket stage that has been drifting through space since launching two lunar landers more than a year ago is expected to crash into the moon on Wednesday, creating a new impact crater and a cloud of dust and debris.

The impact is expected on August 5, 2026 (around 06:35 UTC / ~2:34–2:35 a.m. ET). This involves a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage (roughly 4,000–5,000 kg / ~10,000 pounds and about 40 feet / 12 meters long). It launched on or around January 15, 2025, carrying private lunar landers (including Firefly’s Blue Ghost-1). After completing its mission, the stage was left in a trajectory that evolved over ~18 months under Earth-Moon gravity into a collision course. It is predicted to hit the Moon near Einstein Crater (on the western limb, sunlit side at the time) at about 5,400 mph (~8,700 km/h or ~2.4 km/s). This should create a new crater (estimates vary, on the order of tens of feet / ~10–30 meters across) and a dust plume that scientists hope to observe with Earth-based telescopes and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is one of the rare unintentional human-made impacts on the Moon (a similar Chinese rocket stage hit in 2022). Tracking comes primarily from Bill Gray / Project Pluto.

From Just The News:

A spent SpaceX rocket stage that has been drifting through space since launching two lunar landers more than a year ago is expected to crash into the moon on Wednesday, which will create a new impact crater and a cloud of dust and debris.

Astronomers and skywatchers are hoping to witness the collision and the plume of material that will be blasted into space.