Discarded SpaceX rocket set to unintentionally smash into the moon

A drifting SpaceX rocket is set to crash into the moon on Wednesday, tracking experts say.

The rocket is on a collision course with the moon after it launched a pair of lunar landers more than a year ago.

Its upper stage will unintentionally slam into Earth’s only natural satellite, carving out a crater and sending up a plume of dust and rubble.

The upper stage is the final part of the rocket that ignites, propelling it into space.

Scientists and skygazers are eager to observe the phenomenon, which will occur in the early hours, meaning eastern areas in the U.S. and Canada, and much of South America should have the best views.

The space craft is predicted to hit near the Einstein Crater at an impact of 5,400 mph (8,700 kph), seven times the speed of sound, and packing the equivalent energy of three tons of TNT, according to Space tracking expert Bill Gray.

Experts say the rocket will hit the moon with as much energy as three tons of TNT. / Credit: AP

Although scientists are not overly concerned with the space junk’s movements, it highlights the growing threat as more and more items cram into orbit.

“Things are getting crowded up there,” said Gray, who plans to view the aftermath from New Brunswick, Canada.

SpaceX never meant to hit the moon, but experts suggest it could have been avoided if that part of the rocket had been nudged into orbit around the sun.

This will be the second dead rocket known to crash into the moon accidentally. A Chinese rocket segment dug out a pair of craters on the lunar far side in 2022.

Wednesday’s crash will cause a flash lasting less than a second and will likely be too dim to see, experts say.

However, stargazers will be excited to know the stream of ejected material could stretch for several miles into space and remain visible through telescopes for tens of minutes.

Benjamin Fernando, a scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory, said the moon’s low gravity and lack of wind will prevent the dust from blowing away.

“Part of the reason for our interest in this event is to figure out how much of a hazard debris impacts pose to future astronauts,” he added in an email.

Fernando anticipates an impact crater nearly 27 metres across and five metres deep, too small to see from Earth but visible to spacecraft.

Before and after shots of the event will be captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter.

The Danuri orbiter is expected to stray within a mile or two of the rocket just two minutes before it crashes into the moon.

The abandoned SpaceX rocket segment, measuring 12 meters and weighing around 4,500 kilograms hoisted two private lunar landers in January last year.

One of them — Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost — became the first private spacecraft to pull off a fully successful lunar touchdown. The other, Japan-based ispace’s lander, wrecked.

Scientists observe orbit crashes for their research. NASA hurled rocket sections and lunar modules into the moon during the Apollo era for seismic measurements.

Decades later, in 2009, NASA intentionally crashed its LCROSS spacecraft and upper stage in search of ice near the lunar south pole.

With the moon as the new travel hot spot, scientists said it’s crucial to improve debris monitoring and traffic control before packs of robots and astronauts arrive.

The United States and China are racing to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to provide the lander for NASA’s yet-to-be-named moonwalkers of Artemis IV, who will succeed the 12 Apollo astronauts who strolled the lunar surface.

Retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said although this impact is not a problem, “in a future where there are long-term bases on the moon, similar impacts would be an issue” and we should not leave rockets in “chaotic orbits of this kind”.