A discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is on a high-speed collision course with the moon on Wednesday, August 5. The unplanned impact near Einstein Crater is expected to carve out a fresh crater and send up a towering debris plume potentially visible to astronomers.
Unplanned Lunar Impact Set for August 5
An abandoned rocket component is hours away from an accidental crash landing on the lunar surface. The object, cataloged as 2025-010D, is a spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage that measures roughly 40 to 45 feet long and weighs between 8,800 and 10,000 pounds, according to Forbes and CNBC reporting.
The rocket body originally launched on January 15, 2025, from Launch Complex 39A at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. That flight successfully hoisted a pair of private lunar landers into space: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 and the Hakuto-R Mission 2, named Resilience, developed by the Japanese firm ispace. While the landers journeyed toward the moon, the upper stage was left drifting. With its work finished, the rocket drifted until gravity pulled it onto a collision path.
Trajectory, Speed, and Viewing Conditions
Space tracking expert Bill Gray calculates that the defunct booster will strike the moon at 5,400 mph—equivalent to roughly 8,700 kph or seven times the speed of sound—at 06:35 UTC on August 5. The collision will take place near Einstein Crater and Bell Crater on the moon’s sunlit western limb. Because the impact occurs on the near side of the moon, astronomers and skygazers across the eastern halves of the U.S. and Canada, as well as much of South America, enjoy favorable viewing angles during the early morning hours.
Experts explain that the direct impact flash will likely last less than a second and prove too dim to spot directly from Earth, especially given the sunlit backdrop of the crash site. However, the resulting disruption of lunar soil offers a rare visual spectacle. Modeling indicates that the smashup will pack the mechanical energy equivalent of three tons of TNT, excavating roughly 2.65 million pounds of lunar regolith—about 150 to 200 times the mass of the rocket itself. This process is expected to create a crater roughly 89 feet across and 16 feet deep.
The Ejecta Plume and Scientific Expectations
While the initial flash is subdued, scientists emphasize that the soaring cloud of dust and rubble is the main event. Special physics simulations modeled by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, including graduate research assistant William Jo, suggest the central ejecta spike could reach altitudes between 47 and more than 60 miles above the surface.
Jo cautioned that the projections represent a single nominal case and that real-world observations will vary. He stressed that the flash isn’t really the story here,
urging observers to track the lingering dust plume rather than stopping at the sub-second impact flash. Because lunar gravity is weak and there is no atmosphere or wind to disperse the material, the debris stream could stretch for several miles into space and remain visible to sensitive telescopes for tens of minutes.
Orbital Tracking and Future Lunar Safety
This incident marks only the second known accidental rocket crash on the moon, following a Chinese rocket segment that created a pair of craters on the lunar far side in 2022. Although scientists express little alarm regarding this specific piece of space junk, researchers point out that cislunar space is growing increasingly congested as commercial and national programs accelerate their lunar ambitions.
Researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, including Benjamin Fernando, note that tracking the event provides a valuable testing ground for localizing artificial impacts to calibrate seismic monitoring networks. Furthermore, understanding how debris plumes behave in low gravity helps researchers evaluate potential hazards that future astronauts and permanent moon bases might face. As retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell observed, future lunar bases will require strict protocols to prevent spent hardware from lingering in chaotic cislunar orbits.
Ahead of the impact, space agencies are positioning assets to document the collision. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter are scheduled to capture targeted before-and-after imagery of the site. According to mission planning details, Danuri will pass within a couple of miles of the discarded rocket just two minutes before it strikes the lunar landscape.