Falcon 9 Debris Weighing Around 4 Tons Strikes the Moon at 8,690 km/h

A component of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which had remained in lunar orbit since last year, has crashed into the Moon’s surface.

The impact has yet to be definitively confirmed through further analysis, but the event has reignited discussion about the uncontrolled accumulation of debris in space.

The rocket’s second stage was roughly the size of a school bus and weighed around four tons. It was part of the Falcon 9 that sent a device belonging to Firefly Aerospace toward the Moon in January 2025.

Experts estimate that the object struck the Einstein crater, located on the far side of the Moon, while traveling at approximately 8,690 kilometers per hour.

The crater is far from the famous Apollo 11 landing site, where Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first people to walk on the Moon. There are currently no orbiting spacecraft in the right position to film the collision directly, so scientists are examining images from specialized telescopes to find the dust cloud created by the impact.

SpaceX said the event was not planned. On missions that end with a return to Earth, rocket stages are destroyed during atmospheric re-entry, while the flight toward the Moon required greater thrust and caused this component to remain in space as orbital debris.

Since the beginning of this year, astronomers had predicted that the rocket component’s trajectory would inevitably carry it toward the Moon. Julianna Simon, a program manager at SpaceX, said the effects of gravitational forces, together with solar activity, altered the object’s path until it collided with the lunar surface.

Such events are rare. Previous cases include the crash of a Chinese rocket in 2022 and impacts deliberately carried out by NASA for scientific purposes. However, the latest incident has revived the debate over how space debris should be managed.

The debate is taking on particular importance as NASA prepares to establish a base on the Moon and once again send astronauts to its surface through the Artemis program. In this context, protecting space infrastructure from orbital debris is increasingly being viewed as a priority.