Astronomer Warns SpaceX Rocket Will Crash Into The Moon

A big section of the SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 is predicted to crash into the moon on August 5, astronomer Bill Gray said on his site, Project Pluto.

Gray is the creator of various software, some of which tracks “near-Earth” objects, asteroids, comets, and items in orbit.

His calculations found that the “upper stage” part of the rocket – or the bit which carries the “payload” of the vessel, where the important part, be it people or tracking equipment, lies – should hit the Einstein crater of the moon next month.

There are no people on board. Per ScienceAlert, the Falcon 9 is a partially reusable rocket, which means “its first, larger stage returns to Earth and alights on a barge so it can be refilled and re-flown, while the second stage remains in orbit”. That second part is the bit that’s set to hit the moon.

The astronomer’s best estimation so far is August 5, 7:44am UK time.

Not without special equipment, BBC Sky At Night suggests.

It’s normal to leave this part of a rocket in orbit. They’re often designed to detach.

Hundreds of Falcon 9 rockets have been launched, Gray added, with many of their upper stages orbiting or falling back down to Earth. Some are orbiting the sun.

The one projected to hit the moon in August has been orbiting the Earth for about a year. It was the 10th rocket launched by the company, whose CEO is Elon Musk, in 2025.

Gray called loose bits of spacecraft and other manmade debris in orbit “space junk” and said the issue is increasing “steeply”.

It’s about the size of a five-storey building, the astronomer said.

Gray used his own software to identify the predicted trajectory. “Space junk”, he explained, usually behaves quite predictably: it’s guided by the gravity of celestial bodies around it, like the Earth and moon. That should make tracking and predicting their movements easy.

But these objects are also “pushed around by sunlight,” he added. This is a very slight force, but it adds up over time, and as the object moves around, it’s hard to say exactly how much sun will hit it.

As a result, the astronomer explained, “I can be sure it will impact near the time and place I’ve predicted, but those varying forces mean that the actual impact will be at least a little off from that time and place”.

It’s predicted to zip along at 8,700km an hour.

It’s set to hit the “Einstein crater,” which BBC Sky At Night said sits at a “10 o’clock” position from the perspective of the Earth.

Almost certainly not, the expert said. We’ve even sent items to crash into the moon on purpose before.

But the broader issue of “space junk” might be something we should worry about more, Gray stated.

It can ruin stargazers’ view, might pollute our upper atmosphere on re-entering Earth, and crash into other bodies and other bits of “junk” too.

“The worst-case scenario would be the Kessler effect: we have enough junk in orbit so that a few collisions generate shrapnel that causes more collisions, generating still more shrapnel until just about everything is colliding,” Gray said.