Bill Gray said a Falcon 9 upper stage impact is days away, with the 45-foot second stage expected to strike the moon after circling Earth since January 2025. The object, designated 2025-010D, is projected to hit the moon’s near side.
Gray, an astronomer who writes the Project Pluto software, based his prediction on ground observations from telescopes and surveys. He used those measurements to track the orbit of 2025-010D, the object he linked to the Falcon 9 stage.
January 2025 launch
The stage is believed to be part of the same rocket that launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in January 2025 carrying an uncrewed lunar lander. That lander, the Blue Ghost lander, was developed by Firefly Aerospace and reached the moon’s surface in March.
The Falcon 9 upper stage then entered a highly elliptical orbit around Earth and began taking 26 days to complete one trip around the planet. Most Falcon 9 upper stages eventually reenter Earth’s atmosphere, but this one appears to have gotten stuck in orbital limbo instead.
Moon near side impact
The crash is expected to happen at more than seven times the speed of sound, or 5,400 mph, and to create a new crater on the moon’s surface. The moon has no atmosphere, so the hardware has no chance of burning up before impact.
Gray said the blast should kick up enough dust that powerful instruments may be able to spot it from more than a quarter-million miles away on Earth. He has tracked near-Earth objects like asteroids, comets and human-made spacecraft through Project Pluto, putting the same tools to work on this stage.
SpaceX Falcon 9 mission
The flight adds an odd note to SpaceX’s lunar work: the Falcon 9 was used in a moon mission, while SpaceX is developing Starship for stable, planned moon landings. Elon Musk leads SpaceX, which also uses Dragon and Merlin hardware in other flights.
For now, the near-term focus is the impact itself. The crater and dust plume may be visible to instruments, and the event will leave a fresh mark on the moon’s near side once the stage arrives.
