SpaceX Rocket Debris Expected to Crash Into Moon Creating New Crater

A leftover SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage from a January 2025 lunar landing mission is predicted to collide with the Moon on Wednesday morning between 9:20 and 9:40 Israel time. The rocket, about the size of a bus and weighing roughly four tons, will strike the western side of the Moon's visible surface near the Einstein crater at approximately 8,700 kilometers per hour. This impact is expected to create a new crater about 4 meters deep and 18 meters wide, ejecting dust and rock debris, though the event will be difficult to observe from Earth without powerful telescopes.

The Falcon 9 rocket was part of the launch sequence for Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander, which successfully touched down on the Moon in March. After deployment, the rocket stage remained in space as orbital debris. Solar radiation pressure combined with gravitational forces from the Sun, Earth, and Moon altered its trajectory toward the lunar surface. This incident highlights growing concerns about space debris around the Moon, especially as NASA plans to establish a lunar space station and conduct regular astronaut missions there.

Unlike most rocket stages that re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up, debris near the Moon poses a risk to future missions and astronauts. The collision was unintentional and unknown to mission controllers and astronomers until recently. Scientists plan to study the impact to understand how lunar material disperses. Efforts are underway to track future debris orbits and design missions to avoid similar collisions.

This is not the first human-made object to hit the Moon; Israel's Beresheet lander crashed in 2019, creating a smaller impact. Other countries including Russia, India, China, and the U.S. have also had spacecraft collide with the Moon since the 1970s, intentionally or accidentally. So far, no significant damage to the Moon has been reported from these events.