January 1, SpaceX Rocket on Collision Course with the Moon

After hurtling through the cosmos for nearly seven years, an out-of-control SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon.

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk, launched its Falcon 9 booster in February 2015. Experts say that the booster’s four-ton upper stage will crash into the moon on March 4.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, addressed the situation in a tweet, writing: “For those asking: yes, an old Falcon 9 stage left in high orbit in 2015 is going to hit the moon on March 4. It’s interesting, but not a big deal.”

For those asking: yes, an old Falcon 9 second stage left in high orbit in 2015 is going to hit the moon on March 4. It's interesting, but not a big deal.

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) January 25, 2022

Bill Gray, the developer of software that tracks near-Earth objects, said the Falcon 9’s upper stage is set for “a certain impact on March 4,” likely hitting the far side of the moon, near the equator.

“This is the first unintentional case [of rocket debris hitting the moon] of which I am aware,” Gray wrote in a blog post.

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Out-of-control SpaceX rocket will smash into the moon in weeks