Falcon rocket will hit the moon on August 5

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Falcon rocket will hit the moon on August 5

Back on January 15, 2025, a Falcon 9 rocket launched two missions toward the moon: Blue Ghost and Hakuto-R. After the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket completed its boosting mission, it became just another piece of space junk. But now, says Bill Gray, a prolific tracker of near-Earth objects, the Falcon 9 is on a collision course with the moon.

Gray estimates the upper stage will hit the moon at 1:44 a.m. CDT (6:44 UTC) on August 5, 2026. As Gray said:

It doesn’t present any danger to anyone, though it does highlight a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware (space junk) is disposed of.

Will we be able to see the impact?

The moon will be close to last quarter phase on August 5, 2026. By 1:44 a.m. CDT, those in the Central Time Zone will be able to see the moon, as it will have already risen in the east. Saturn will be nearby. Check Stellarium to see if the moon will be above the horizon at the time of impact if you’re further west. The timing will favor people in the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada, plus much of South America.

So where will the rocket hit? Right now, Gray said he estimates the impact will occur near the edge, or limb, of the moon, close to the Einstein crater.

However, the chances are we won’t be able to see the impact from Earth. Darn. Although the Einstein crater should (barely) be visible, the impact will likely be too small to see from so great a distance. However, after the impact, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter might be able to get an image of the resulting crater. It’s happened before.

Previous lunar impact

Back in 2022, Bill Gray also predicted a rocket impact with the moon. There was a little confusion about where the rocket came from, but the space junk did indeed hit the moon on March 4, 2022. And it left a mark, too. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took an image of the aftermath.

A speeding object

Gray estimates the space junk will hit the moon at about 2.43 kilometers (1.51 miles) a second. That equates to 5,400 miles (8,700 kilometers) an hour. Because the moon has no real atmosphere, there will be nothing to slow it down.

Tracking the Falcon 9 upper stage

There have been hundreds of Falcon 9 launches. Usually, the spent rocket bodies orbit closely to Earth and eventually reenter our atmosphere. But some have gone on to orbit the sun.

This upper stage rocket has spent most of its time farther out than average, around the distance of the moon. Asteroid surveys pick up objects like this as they scan for dangerous space rocks. As Gray said:

The asteroid surveys would actually prefer not to observe space junk. Time spent observing junk is time not spent finding rocks. But both the rocks and the high-altitude space junk are slowly moving points of light in their images; they aren’t easy to distinguish. So the asteroid surveys find this sort of junk whether they want to or not.

Gray provides software tools for astronomers that help them distinguish between space rocks and space junk. He also computes orbits for high-orbiting objects the military doesn’t track. And he’s been tracking this piece of space junk for months. He’s known since September 2025 that the upper stage was likely on a collision course with the moon. And as he told EarthSky, he wasn’t surprised:

I’ve been checking for such possible impacts for about 20 years, ever since we started having many large bits of junk in orbits that could hit the moon. In a way, the only real surprise is that only two objects have hit the moon.

Rocket will hit the moon despite tiny pushes from sunlight

Over the past months he’s continued to track the object. The reason it can change course a tiny bit is due to the gentle push of sunlight on objects. And that little bit of push is tricky to track. As Gray said:

As an object tumbles, it may catch more or less sunlight, and may reflect some of it sideways.

But, as Gray told EarthSky:

I was reasonably sure a month or two later, but was in no rush to say anything about it. I figured I’d wait until the impact location was well established. So it was something of a gradual process, with no ‘Aha! It’s gonna hit!’ moment.

Not a lot of tracking farther from Earth

Gray told EarthSky:

I am an astronomer working under contract with both asteroid and artificial object observers. I started out doing this for natural objects (asteroids, comets, moons of other planets) about 30 years ago. A few years later, the asteroid surveys started to notice the occasional artificial object and asked me if I could find orbits for them as well.

And as Gray explains on his website, various countries carefully track objects in low-Earth orbit because there are so many pieces of debris with risks of collision with military and science satellites. Farther from Earth, there is less tracking. Or, as Gray said:

Generally speaking, high-altitude junk goes ignored. (Except, it appears, by me.)

Gray works with asteroid hunters. As he said:

My ‘day work’ is for the asteroid-hunting community … Most artificial objects are close to the Earth and move fast enough that there is no risk of mistaking them for an asteroid. But there are about a dozen ‘high-flying’ objects that can move slowly enough to look like a rock, at least briefly. For about 15 or 20 years now, I’ve taken these observations and computed orbits. Then, when the surveys find such objects, they can fairly quickly say ‘Never mind; it’s not a rock; it’s just another nuisance artificial object,’ and go back to looking for actual rocks.

Bottom line: A Falcon 9 rocket will hit the moon on August 5, 2026. How fast will it be going? Will we be able to see it? Answers here.