A piece of SpaceX Falcon 9 hardware is set to hit the Moon on August 5, 2026, near Einstein Crater

 

A piece of SpaceX Falcon 9 hardware is set to hit the Moon on August 5, 2026, near Einstein Crater — and scientists know the exact predicted time: 06:35 UTC.

The object, designated 2025-010D, is the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket launched in January 2025, which had successfully delivered two private robotic landers toward the Moon before being left drifting on its own trajectory. With no fuel remaining to return to Earth or maneuver into a different path, the stage has been on an unplanned collision course ever since.

The stage measures about 12 meters long and 4 meters wide, weighing roughly 4,000 kilograms, and is expected to strike the lunar surface at approximately 8,750 kilometers per hour — using tracking data calculated by astronomer Bill Gray and computer simulations detailed in a study on arXiv.

Because the stage is largely a hollow metal shell rather than a solid object, researchers expect it to behave very differently from a natural asteroid impact — collapsing on contact rather than punching through cleanly. Simulations suggest the impact will carve a new crater roughly 20 to 30 meters wide, while throwing a cloud of lunar dust several kilometers above the surface.

"Potential observables from this event include the flash at the time of impact… and the ejecta plume," the research team writes. Those two signatures — the brief flash of the collision and the rising dust cloud — are what astronomers hope to capture in order to compare against their predictive models.

The impact is expected to occur on the Moon's near side, giving Earth-based observers a genuine chance to witness it, though capturing the brief event will require cameras capable of very high-speed video recording. The study's authors are encouraging both professional astronomers and experienced amateur observers to participate in monitoring the event.

Beyond the spectacle, the researchers see practical scientific value: improving methods for precisely locating lunar impacts could directly inform how future lunar seismometers are deployed and interpreted, helping researchers better understand vibrations and structural activity beneath the Moon's surface.

Astronomy Space