A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience lunar landers, streaks into orbit after lifting off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 15, 2025. The upper stage could hit the moon on Aug. 5, 2026. (Photo by Gregg Newton / AFP) (Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images)
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A discarded part of a rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX could crash into the moon early on Aug. 5, potentially creating a new crater, according to a new report. The upper stage of a rocket could slam into the moon on Aug. 5, on the western limb of the moon.
The report is authored by Bill Gray at Project Pluto, a software program that tracks near-Earth objects — including the SpaceX space junk, designated 2025-010D.
The rocket part — a 45 ft.(13.8 meter) upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — was launched into space on Jan. 15, 2025, from Launch Complex 39A at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
2025-010D is currently in an elliptical 26-day orbit around Earth, reaching a distance of 310,000 miles (510,000 km) from Earth. That’s farther than the moon, which is, on average, 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) distant.
Space debris in orbit is on the rise, with about 35,000 objects now tracked by space surveillance networks, according to the European Space Agency.
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Gray thinks 2025-010D will strike the moon close to Einstein, a 112-123 miles (181-198 kilometers) wide crater on the moon’s far western limb, which is difficult to see from Earth. It will strike it at 1.51 miles (2.43 kilometers) per second, which is 5,400 miles (8,700 kilometers) per hour, at approximately 2:44 a.m. EDT on Aug. 5, 2026. Amateur astronomer Tony Dunn published a simulation video of the impact.
Blue Ghost Mission 1's "shadow selfie" on the lunar surface.
Firefly Aerospace
The space junk now seemingly headed for a lunar impact comes from the launch of two lunar missions — the Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 and the ispace RESILIENCE mission. Firefly Aerospace’s mission — dubbed “Ghost Riders in the Sky” — successfully touched down at the moon’s Mare Crisium on March 2, 2025, to become the first commercial company to achieve a fully successful first-attempt soft landing.
Blue Ghost operated for one entire period of lunar daylight — 14.5 days — before it could no longer operate on solar power. It took some fabulous images, including those of a total solar eclipse and a lunar sunrise. ispace’s RESILIENCE mission was less successful at delivering its Hakuto-R lander to the lunar surface; it crashed on June 4, 2025.
Although there’s no danger from space junk striking the moon, that may not always be the case. NASA’s Artemis program — which recently completed the Artemis II mission — is designed as a step-by-step return to the moon, ultimately culminating in a permanent moon base. Ironically, its ambition to land two astronauts on the moon during its Artemis IV mission depends entirely on progress made by SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin on lunar landers.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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