SpaceX upper stage set to impact moon at high speed on Wednesday

A 40-foot, 10,000-pound upper stage from a SpaceX launch on Jan. 15, 2025 is expected to hit the Moon’s near side on Wednesday at roughly 5,400 mph, near the sunlit western limb close to Einstein Crater. The impact will occur in the early hours of Wednesday, providing the best viewing conditions for eastern North America, Canada and much of South America.

Space-tracking specialist Bill Gray said the collision will release a plume of dust and debris that could be visible to telescopes for several minutes. "The gravity on the moon is low and there is no wind to blow the dust away," said Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who encouraged both professional and amateur observations.

Scientists expect the flash from the impact to last less than a second, with an energy release comparable to three tons of TNT. Fernando estimates the resulting crater will be about 90 feet across and 16 feet deep—too small to see from Earth but detectable by orbiters. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter will capture before-and-after images; Danuri will pass within a mile or two of the rocket two minutes before impact.

The incident follows a 2022 accidental lunar impact by a Chinese rocket fragment and highlights growing concerns about space debris as lunar activity increases. "Things are getting crowded up there," Gray noted. Retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said the event poses no immediate risk but warned that future long-term lunar bases could be threatened by uncontrolled debris.

The rocket stage had previously carried two private lunar landers: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, which achieved a successful touchdown, and a lander from Japan’s ispace, which failed. The impact provides an opportunity to assess how human-made debris behaves on the Moon, informing future debris-monitoring and traffic-control efforts as the United States, China and private companies prepare for crewed lunar missions.