Spent SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Stage Crashes Into Moon at 5,400 MPH

A four-tonne spent SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage crashed into the far side of the Moon at 5,400 mph early Wednesday, striking the lunar surface near Einstein Crater and creating a new impact crater.

The unguided crash occurred at approximately 2:35 a.m. Eastern Time, launching an estimated one million kilograms of debris up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) into the lunar sky. Officials confirmed the impact poses no danger to Earth.

Julianna Scheiman, director of SpaceX’s NASA science and Dragon spaceflight programs, attributed the trajectory that led to the crash to “a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces.”

NASA is currently processing telemetry and orbital data, with the agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter expected to capture images of the impact site in the coming days to assess the structural damage to the lunar surface. While scientists previously anticipated the collision might produce a faint flash visible from Earth, optical observatories and amateur astronomers around the globe failed to spot any visual indication of the event in daylight or darkness.

The spent upper stage was originally launched in January 2025 carrying a pair of lunar landers. While rocket stages used for low-Earth orbit missions are typically commanded to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere or splash down in the ocean, SpaceX abandoned this Falcon 9 upper stage in deep space, where it drifted for 18 months under complex gravitational pulls before hitting the Moon.

Unintentional lunar impacts remain rare despite the presence of roughly 130 million pieces of space debris orbiting Earth at speeds of 11,000 mph or faster. Remnants of a Chinese spacecraft struck the Moon in March 2022 following a lunar mission, while NASA intentionally crashed a rocket stage into the lunar surface in 2009 to analyze the dust cloud kicked up by the impact.