In the early hours of Wednesday, telescopes worldwide will aim to capture a rare event: an aging rocket crashing into the sunlit side of the moon. The rocket is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 that launched in January 2025 carrying two commercial lunar landers: Firefly Blue Ghost-1 from the U.S. and ispace Hakuto-R Resilience from Japan.
Independent astronomer Bill Gray, who tracks objects in space, discovered last September that the rocket would have a close encounter with the moon on August 5, 2026. Gray had to consider the influence of the sun’s gravity in calculating the exact orbital data. Upon refining the orbit, he realized the rocket was on a collision course with the moon.
The impact is expected to occur on the moon’s daylight side near the limb. This event is not unprecedented, as human-made objects like Apollo upper stages and intentionally smashed objects have impacted the lunar surface in the past.
Astronomers are urging observatories and amateur astronomers to observe the impact on August 5 at 2:34:32.9 a.m. ET. The best viewing locations will be in central and eastern Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean, and parts of South America. The rocket’s impact is likely to eject a plume of debris into space, estimated to exceed one million kilograms before most of it falls back to the moon.
The observations are crucial for understanding the risks posed by artificial impacts as human space exploration advances. The aim is to assess the hazards posed by such impacts and potential consequences, such as debris falling back onto the lunar surface.
As the event approaches, Gray continues to monitor various space objects, including the upper stage of China’s Chang’e 3 rocket launched in 2013, to ensure their trajectories do not pose a future risk. The impact of the Falcon 9 rocket on the moon serves as a unique opportunity to gather valuable data for space exploration safety.
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