A Dead SpaceX Rocket Is About to Slam Into the Moon at 5,400 MPH

Key Points:

• On August 5, 2026, a five-story Falcon 9 upper stage, weighing several tonnes, will impact the Moon near the Einstein crater at approximately 5,400 mph, after tumbling in a chaotic Earth-Moon orbit for over a year.
• The rocket stage was stranded in a 26-day elliptical orbit following its January 2025 launch of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 2, lacking fuel to deorbit or velocity to escape, until gravitational forces and solar radiation pressure steered it into a lunar collision course.
• Independent astronomer Bill Gray, using Project Pluto software, has precisely tracked the impact timing around 2:35–2:44 a.m. Eastern Time, marking another upper stage expected to hit the near side of the Moon.
• Scientists view the impact as a valuable, unplanned experiment to study lunar subsurface structure and crater formation, planning professional observational campaigns, though the event will be difficult to observe with amateur telescopes due to its location on sunlit terrain near the Moon's eastern limb.
• This incident highlights growing concerns about the fate of hardware left in cislunar space as commercial lunar missions increase, underscoring challenges in managing orbital debris beyond Earth.