Bill Gray says a Falcon 9 upper stage used in January 2025 is now on course for the Moon, with impact expected Aug. 5 at 2:35 a.m. Eastern. SpaceX rocket to hit the Moon is the latest case to put upper-stage disposal under scrutiny as NASA and SpaceX discuss how to avoid repeats.
Gray said he first reported the projected collision in April after tracking the stage. He said the stage is expected to strike near Einstein on the western limb of the Moon, with impact energy equal to two to three tons of TNT.
Julianna Scheiman on passivation
Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science and Dragon programs at SpaceX, said the impact is not intentional. She said, “What has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path toward the moon.”
Scheiman also said SpaceX followed best practices in passivating the stage “per the appropriate rules and regulations.” She said a launch on a high-energy trajectory like this cannot deorbit the stage, while SpaceX does deorbit stages for missions to low Earth orbit.
NASA and SpaceX planning
Scheiman said, “One of the things that we’re working on in partnership with NASA and the other appropriate agencies is what is the best future disposal path for high-energy missions that are in the sun-Earth-moon system.” NASA plans to observe the impact site with Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter after the collision, and South Korea’s space agency said Danuri will also attempt to observe it.
The collision follows earlier lunar impacts that scientists used for study. The upper stage from the 2014 Long March 3B launch of the Chang’e-5 T1 mission hit the Moon in 2022 and left a double crater, while the Atlas 5 Centaur was deliberately sent into Cabeus crater near the lunar south pole in 2009.
Moon impact history
Those earlier impacts helped researchers compare crater shapes, plume behavior, and interior response. The Apollo program also sent third stages from several Saturn 5 launches to collide with the Moon, and seismometers on the lunar surface detected those impacts to help scientists study the Moon’s interior.
For this stage, the impact is unlikely to be visible from Earth, though telescopes may be able to see a plume. What SpaceX and NASA choose as the disposal path for future high-energy missions is the practical question now, because the stage cannot be steered away once it is on this kind of trajectory.
