SpaceX rocket on collision course for crash into the Moon

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage is on a chaotic collision course to impact the Moon in August 2026.

According to an analysis by astronomer Bill Gray, the massive earthly projectile will slam into our closest neighbour. Gray developed the Project Pluto software used to track such objects.

As reported by ScienceAlert, the impact is predicted for 5 August 2026 at 06:44 UTC. It is expected to occur near the Einstein crater.

The rogue piece of hardware is the upper stage of a Falcon 9, roughly the height of a five-storey building.

The object, designated 2025-010D, is from a rocket that launched in January 2025. It carried two lunar landers, the Blue Ghost and Hakuto-R Mission 2.

While many rocket stages fall back to Earth or enter orbit around the Sun, this one has remained in a chaotic local orbit.

"The motion of space junk is mostly quite predictable; it simply moves under the influence of the gravity of the Earth, Moon, Sun, and planets," Gray explains.

"We know those with immense precision."

At the same time, the push exerted by sunlight is constantly acting on the object in ever-changing ways as it tumbles through the void. Though this force is slight, it adds up unpredictably over time, making its long-term path difficult to perfectly forecast.

The second stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 currently takes approximately 26 days to orbit our planet in a wide, looping path.

Its path intersects the gravitational track of the Moon. "Usually, one goes through the intersection point while the other is someplace else," Gray says.

Then, as gravity forces them to meet: "on August 5, they'll reach that point at the same time," he adds.

For those unversed, this is far from the first time the Moon has accommodated a ballistics experiment from Earth. In the 1970s, multiple Apollo modules were smashed onto the lunar surface, creating small 'moonquakes' to study its composition.

In 2009, NASA crashed its LCROSS probe into the Moon, kicking up ancient dust that revealed the presence of water ice.

The most recent lunar impact occurred in 2022, when what is thought to be a Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 booster crashed on the far side.

The Falcon 9 collision is also expected to leave a fresh crater, though the flare of impact will not be visible from Earth. However, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter may eventually be able to image the aftermath of the high-speed collision.

Fortunately, this impact poses no danger. There are no humans or structures to be harmed by the raining rocket debris.

But the broader problem is growing. Reckless space-junk disposal threatens active satellites and may endanger future human missions.

With Artemis IV aiming for a 2028 Moon landing, the issue is becoming more urgent for all space agencies.

Gray says the simplest way to avoid these impacts could be "to put upper stages in orbits where they will leave the Earth and Moon."

This would place them "in orbit around the sun, such that they won't hit us for a long time."