SpaceX Falcon Crash on the Moon Serves as a Warning for Future Lunar Bases

The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which has been drifting in space for a year and a half, will crash into the lunar surface on Wednesday. The impact, expected at 6:34 am UTC, will produce a debris cloud that could be observed from Earth. The Americas will have the best view, though the event will not be visible to the naked eye; a good telescope should reveal the plume for a few minutes.

The rocket, weighing about 4 metric tons, will hit the Moon at approximately 5,400 mph—roughly seven times the speed of sound. Because the Moon lacks an atmosphere, the collision will release the equivalent of 3 metric tons of TNT and carve out a crater up to 27 meters in diameter and 5 meters deep. The crash site is expected to be near Einstein Crater on the western edge of the Moon's near side.

This is not the first accidental lunar impact. In March 2022, a Chinese Long March 3C rocket left a crater 29 meters wide. With both China and the US planning to establish bases on the Moon in the coming decades, questions about space debris and safety are becoming more pressing. Several countries are also preparing uncrewed lunar missions, which could add to the clutter around the Moon.

Bill Gray, founder of Project Pluto, an initiative that develops software for tracking asteroids, comets, and artificial satellites, was the first to calculate the Falcon 9's trajectory. He also contributed to a preprint study released last month that details the collision. The study describes the crash as an opportunity to test pipelines for measuring flash properties, locate impact events seismically, and better understand the multi-modal hazards that space debris poses to future lunar infrastructure and astronauts.

Benjamin Fernando, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and coauthor of the preprint, told ABC News that such events will happen more often. He stressed the need to understand how much risk these impacts pose, especially as more astronauts and habitats are placed on the lunar surface. Natural meteorite strikes also threaten future activities. Since any potential lunar base is still more than a decade away, researchers have time to study these hazards. Fernando noted that the crash is an ideal way to examine both direct risks, such as being hit by debris or blinded by a flash, and indirect risks, such as ejected material interfering with spacecraft in lunar orbit.