Overview
- The passivated Falcon 9 second stage struck the Moon near Einstein crater on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026, at about 5,400 mph and released energy roughly equivalent to three tonnes of TNT.
- The object was a roughly 12‑metre, 4,000–4,500 kg upper stage left after the Jan. 15, 2025 launch that sent Firefly’s Blue Ghost and Japan’s ispace lander toward the Moon.
- Scientists estimate the impact carved a new crater about 18–30 metres wide and threw up an ejecta plume, though ground telescopes reported mixed results and no widely confirmed flash was seen.
- NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Danuri/ShadowCam along with other orbiters and ground teams are collecting before-and-after imagery to measure the crater and validate impact models.
- SpaceX and independent trackers say solar radiation pressure plus Earth–Moon–Sun gravitational perturbations slowly nudged the passivated stage onto a collision course, a development that has revived calls to tighten tracking and disposal rules for cislunar hardware.