A four-ton second stage from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched a lunar lander in January 2025 was expected to crash into the moon early Wednesday at high speed, marking a rare instance of uncontrolled space debris striking the lunar surface.
A school-bus-sized piece of space debris from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was anticipated to have struck the moon's Einstein Crater on its western limb early Wednesday morning, traveling at approximately 5,400 miles per hour. The object, weighing four metric tons, was the second stage from a January 2025 launch that deployed a lunar lander operated by Firefly Aerospace. SpaceX confirmed the impact was unintentional and stated that no orbital spacecraft were positioned to capture live images of the collision, meaning confirmation of the crash was expected to take several hours as scientists analyzed telescope observations from the Americas.
Rocket stages typically burn up upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere or fall into oceans following their primary mission. However, the lunar lander mission required additional thrust that left this particular stage unable to return to Earth. Floating among thousands of pieces of space junk since January, the uncontrolled rocket body was only identified earlier this year to be on a trajectory toward the moon. According to Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX's director of NASA science and Dragon programs, "a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces" ultimately placed the debris on its lunar course.
Bill Gray, creator of widely used astronomy software, noted in an April report that the impact holds "probably minor" scientific interest while highlighting concerns about space hardware disposal. Impacts of space junk on the moon remain uncommon; a Chinese rocket stage crashed there in March 2022, and several lunar landers from India, Russia, and Israel have crashed in recent years. NASA and SpaceX are reportedly discussing preventive measures, particularly as NASA plans its Artemis program to establish a lunar base and conduct routine astronaut missions beginning later this decade.
