SpaceX Rocket Debris to Impact Moon Today
20 Shrawan, Kathmandu – A piece of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set to collide with the surface of the Moon on Wednesday. The debris, roughly the size of a school bus and weighing about 4 metric tons (4,000 kilograms), has been drifting uncontrollably since last year. It was used to send Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander toward the Moon in January 2025. According to U.S. time, the collision is expected at 2:35 a.m. Wednesday, which corresponds to approximately 1:20 p.m. Nepal time. The debris will strike the lunar surface at a speed of about 5,400 miles (8,690 kilometers) per hour, causing a plume on the Moon’s surface. The impact is expected to kick up a significant amount of lunar dust, which may reflect sunlight but will be difficult to observe with the naked eye from Earth, scientists say.
SpaceX has indicated that the debris is likely to impact near the Einstein Crater on the Moon’s western region, an area that is difficult to observe directly from Earth. The company has stated that this event was not planned. With the rocket’s second stage having exhausted its fuel, there is no possibility to control or redirect it. Typically, after a rocket delivers its payload into orbit, its remaining stages re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up or fall into the ocean. However, during the January 2025 lunar lander launch, more thrust than usual was needed to reach the Moon, preventing the Falcon 9 second stage from re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. Since then, this debris has been orbiting uncontrollably among thousands of other space fragments.
Earlier this year, scientists determined that the rocket debris had entered an orbit ending in collision with the Moon. Its residual fuel had already been depleted. According to reports, Juliana Simon, Director of Science and the Dragon program at NASA, explained that the combined effects of solar activity and gravitational forces caused the debris to move toward the Moon. She emphasized that there is no immediate danger from this event, but it highlights the ongoing challenge of managing leftover rocket stages and other debris in space. Collisions involving space debris on the Moon are rare. Human-made objects striking the lunar surface have been infrequent — in March 2022, a Chinese rocket stage impacted the Moon, and in 2009, NASA deliberately crashed part of a rocket onto the lunar surface to study the resulting dust and debris.
Simon also noted that NASA and SpaceX are discussing measures to prevent uncontrolled impacts like this in the future. NASA’s Artemis program, which involves multibillion-dollar plans to establish a lunar base and send astronauts regularly by the end of this decade, increases the importance of managing space debris. Scientists warn that uncontrolled rocket stages and other orbital debris pose potential risks to existing equipment and future lunar missions as human activity on the Moon expands.