Notes ·
SpaceX Accidentally Shot the Moon With a Rocket
A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage crashed into the Moon on August 5 at roughly 5,400 mph, carving a new crater into the lunar surface.
This was not intentional.
The stage came from a 2025 launch carrying two private lunar landers. According to SpaceX, solar activity and gravity gradually pushed the abandoned stage onto an accidental collision course after it had been drifting for about a year.
The first before-and-after images came from South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter. The impact area is visibly darker, with dust and rock thrown across the surrounding terrain. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is expected to image the site as well.
The particularly funny part is that SpaceX also launched Danuri in 2022.
So SpaceX launched the spacecraft that eventually photographed the crater made when another SpaceX rocket accidentally slammed into the Moon.
Humans have intentionally crashed rocket stages into the Moon before. NASA deliberately aimed several Apollo Saturn V upper stages at the lunar surface so seismometers could measure the impacts. This one was simply orbital mechanics eventually finding somewhere for our space junk to land.
Still, there is something wonderfully absurd about being technologically advanced enough that “we accidentally shot the Moon with a rocket” is now a thing that can happen.