2026 SpaceX lunar impact

19°28′33″N 93°17′10″W / 19.4759°N 93.2862°W / 19.4759; -93.2862

Before/after images of the crater taken by the Narrow-Angle Camera on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.[1]
The complete rocket on its launch pad, the cylindrical second stage of which crashed on the Moon.

The spent upper stage (COSPAR ID 2025-010D) of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket collided with the Moon[2] near Einstein Crater[3] on 5 August 2026.[4] The 3,900-kilogram (8,600 lb) spacecraft had been abandoned the previous year in a Moon-crossing high Earth orbit after delivering two lunar landers: Blue Ghost-1 and Hakuto-R Mission 2. The crash, which was not planned,[5][6] is humanity's third known (or presumed) unintentional lunar impact of a rocket body, after the third stage that delivered Luna 2 in 1959[7] and the upper stage of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program's Chang'e 5-T1 mission on the far side of the Moon in 2022.[8][9]

This crash posed no danger to satellites and other space assets, but renewed attention to space law about space junk and space archaeology[4] and to the larger context of the Second Space Race.[5]

Prelude

The spent rocket had been observed many times since it was abandoned, and in September 2025, it was predicted to hit the moon in August 2026.[10]

As of 31 July 2026, the time of impact was estimated to be 06:35 UTC, with a margin of error of a few minutes.[11] The impact speed was expected to be about 8,700 kilometres (5,400 mi) per hour and the explosion to be equivalent to 3 tons of TNT (1.3×1010 J).[12] NASA calculated that the crater would be about 18 metres (59 ft) wide and 4 metres (13 ft) deep.[13][4] There was a slim possibility that the flash—lasting less than a second—would be visible via telescope from the eastern United States and much of South America.[11]

Impact

This prediction was accurate to the minute. No visual observations were reported of the impact itself, but a plume was detected by its lithium and sodium emission lines for 10 minutes after the predicted time by the Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.[14] Scientist Carl Schmidt of Boston University said that he was "100 percent confident" that this signal was caused by the impact.[15] The sodium was thought to have come from the lunar soil while the lithium was more likely to have come from the rocket components.[16]

The orbit of the South Korean lunar observation satellite Danuri was adjusted to take photographs of the crash site, starting 33 minutes before the impact and taking seven more pictures over the next 16 hours from an altitude of around 350 kilometres (220 mi). KASA published photographs on 6 August showing the impact site with splashes of ejecta.[17]

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took images on Aug 11 and 12, which were compared to earlier images to determine the crater location: 19.4759°N, 266.7138°E, 511 meters elevation.[1]

Animation of Falcon 9 RB Booster
Around the Earth
Around the Moon
Around the Moon – Close-up
  Falcon 9 RB Booster ·   Moon ·   Earth

References

  1. 1 2 NASA's LRO Images Falcon 9 Crater on Moon, Learns New Details, 18 August 2026, archived from the original on 20 August 2026, retrieved 20 August 2026
  2. ↑ "Upper stage impacting the moon on 2026 August 5". www.projectpluto.com. Archived from the original on 1 August 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026.
  3. ↑ "A discarded SpaceX rocket is on a high-speed collision course with the moon". CNBC. 31 July 2026. Archived from the original on 1 August 2026. Retrieved 2 August 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 Press, Associated (31 July 2026). "Drifting SpaceX rocket heading for accidental collision with moon". The Guardian.
  5. 1 2 Dunn, Marcia (5 August 2026). "Scientists are certain a wayward SpaceX rocket slammed into the moon as predicted". AP News. Archived from the original on 6 August 2026. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  6. ↑ Dallow, Lily (6 August 2026). "SpaceX rocket crashes into the moon after drifting off course". The Hill. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
  7. ↑ "Luna 2". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Archived from the original on 25 August 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  8. ↑ Campbell, Tanner; Battle, Adam; Gray, Bill; Chesley, Steven R.; Farnocchia, Davide; Pearson, Neil; Halferty, Grace; Reddy, Vishnu; Furfaro, Roberto (1 November 2023). "Physical Characterization of Moon Impactor WE0913A". The Planetary Science Journal. 4 (11): 217. Bibcode:2023PSJ.....4..217C. doi:10.3847/PSJ/acffb8. hdl:10150/671801. ISSN 2632-3338.
  9. ↑ Ben Turner (22 November 2023). "Chinese rocket carrying 'undisclosed' object crashed into the moon and left twin craters, study claims". Live Science. Archived from the original on 7 August 2026. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  10. ↑ "Upper stage impacting the moon on 2026 August 5". www.projectpluto.com. Archived from the original on 1 August 2026. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  11. 1 2 Fernando, Benjamin; Heldmann, Jennifer; Grey, Bill; Ortiz, John; Euser, Bryan; Seligman, Darryl Z.; Kim, Eunhyeuk; Colaprete, Anthony; Alessi, Elisa Maria; Koschny, Detlef; Cook, Anthony; Green, Joel; King, Patrick; Teng, Stacy; Graninger, Dawn; Goldberg, Arnold; Cooke, William; Skrutskie, Mike F.; Schlaufman, Kevin; Schmerr, Nicholas; Donahue, Carly M.; Schmidt, Carl A.; Chanover, Nancy J. (16 July 2026). "Observational planning for the 2026 August 5 Falcon 9 Upper Stage lunar impact". arXiv:2607.14625 [astro-ph.EP].
  12. ↑ David, Leonard (25 June 2026). "A SpaceX rocket will slam into the moon this August. Will we be able to see it?". Space.
  13. ↑ Holmes, Oliver (5 August 2026). "SpaceX rocket hours away from crashing into the moon in unintentional collision". The Guardian.
  14. ↑ Hadfield, Charlotte; James, Imogen; Ghosh, Pallab (5 August 2026). "SpaceX rocket expected to have crashed into Moon – live updates". BBC News. Archived from the original on 5 August 2026. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
  15. ↑ Kenneth Chang (5 August 2026), "A Four-Ton SpaceX Rocket Stage Hit the Moon, but Almost No One Saw It", The New York Times
  16. ↑ Saunokonoko, Mark (6 August 2026), "'Spectral lines' and a giant plume: what science saw when the SpaceX rocket hit the moon", The Guardian, ISSN 0261-3077
  17. ↑ "Danuri captures before-and-after images of Falcon 9 debris impact", Korea JoongAng Daily, 6 August 2026, archived from the original on 7 August 2026, retrieved 8 August 2026

Further reading

This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.