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Watch a SpaceX Rocket Crash Into the Moon
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A four-ton SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage, left drifting after a January 2025 lunar mission, is on an uncontrolled trajectory to crash into the Moon's Einstein Crater at approximately 5,400 mph.
The event exposes a disposal gap for upper stages on lunar missions, unlike closer-orbit missions where stages burn up in Earth's atmosphere, the extra thrust required leaves them as uncontrolled debris. Engineers designing cislunar missions need to account for end-of-life disposal of these stages, or risk adding to the growing population of space junk that active satellites must avoid.
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The Falcon 9 upper stage dumped its remaining fuel and cannot be controlled, with solar activity and gravitational forces determining its trajectory toward the Moon.
Lunar missions require enough thrust that the second stage remains in space rather than falling back to Earth, creating uncontrolled debris unless disposal is explicitly designed into the mission.
Bill Gray, who published a report on the impact in April, stated the crash highlights carelessness in how leftover space hardware is disposed of, though it poses no danger.
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