Wednesday, August 5th 2026 - 21:44 UTC
The object, weighing around 4,000 kilograms and catalogued as 2025-010D, hit at approximately 06:35 UTC at a speed close to 2.4 kilometers per second
The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket struck the lunar surface on Wednesday near the Einstein crater, in an unplanned impact that NASA described as safe and posing no risk to Earth or to missions operating on the Moon.
The object, weighing around 4,000 kilograms and catalogued as 2025-010D, hit at approximately 06:35 UTC at a speed close to 2.4 kilometers per second, on the eastern limb of the near side. NASA had estimated in advance that the resulting crater would measure some 18 meters across and four meters deep. Those dimensions are projections; confirmation will require subsequent orbital imaging.
The stage came from the January 15, 2025 launch that carried the Blue Ghost 1 lander, built by US company Firefly Aerospace under NASA's CLPS commercial lunar payload initiative, and Japan's ispace Resilience lander. Blue Ghost touched down successfully on March 2, 2025; Resilience crashed after communications were lost shortly before descent.
