NASA Photos Show Crater From SpaceX Moon Crash
NASA Photos Show Crater From SpaceX Moon Crash
The News
NASA released before-and-after images Tuesday showing a fresh crater on the moon carved by a crashing SpaceX rocket.
The defunct upper stage of a Falcon 9 slammed into the lunar surface uncontrolled on Aug. 5 at an estimated 5,400 mph.
The new pictures, taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on Aug. 11 and 12, show a bright divot about 60 feet across in the moon's already-pockmarked terrain. Based on the length of the crater's shadow, NASA says it is most likely less than 10 feet deep.
It is only the second known case of a rocket unintentionally hitting the moon.
Timeline
The roughly 10,800-pound Falcon 9 upper stage launches two landers toward the moon, then remains adrift in orbit.
The stage crashes into the moon at an estimated 5,400 mph. There are no live views of the impact, but researchers track the rocket's trajectory and pinpoint the expected site along the western edge of the moon's sunlit side. A telescope in Chile spots a debris plume from the collision.
The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, launched in 2022 as South Korea's first moon mission, flies over the site and photographs the crater and the ejected material around it.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images the crash site. It took six days for the orbiter's path to line up with the site; engineers had to tilt the spacecraft so its cameras pointed at the crater as it flew 60 miles above the surface at 1 mile per second.
NASA publishes the before-and-after imagery.
Reactions
SpaceX said in a statement on Aug. 5 that it tries to properly account for its hardware after missions.
"We actively work to be as responsible as possible with hardware left in space to ensure space safety, including for more complex missions," the company said. "In this case, over time, solar activity and gravity led the second stage toward the Moon. Impacts like this are rare, but they can happen with objects in these types of orbits, and we worked with NASA on the optimal disposal solution."
NBC News reported the crash ignited fresh debate over sustainability in space, particularly as the United States and China race to put astronauts and infrastructure on the moon.
What's Next
NASA has published the details of what its orbiter found, including the crater's size, depth estimate and the streaks around it. The moon rotates while the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter circles pole to pole every two hours, so any additional views of the site depend on the spacecraft's orbit lining up with the location again.
The unresolved question the crash leaves behind is policy, not physics: what happens to spent rocket stages left in deep-space orbits as more nations and companies head for the moon.
More
The images show bright and dark streaks radiating from the crater. According to NASA, the darker rays are surface dust and rocks kicked up from a depth of about 1.5 feet, while the brighter streaks near the rim came from fresher material excavated from deeper underground. The crater's center sits at an elevation of roughly 1,700 feet. Each released image covers an area of the moon about 1,000 feet wide.
The only other known uncontrolled rocket impact came in 2022, when what was thought to be the upper stage of a Chinese rocket that sent a test capsule toward the moon in 2014 hit the far side and carved a snowman-shaped double crater. China has denied its spacecraft was involved.
Sources: NASA via the Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News, CNN, Sky News, Forbes and the National Post.
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