A scrapped Falcon 9 rocket stage is expected to collide with the moon’s surface in August, creating a new crater and highlighting the problem of clutter in space, according to a new report.
The report was written by Bill Gray of Project Pluto, a software program that tracks objects near Earth. He predicts the impact will occur on August 5, 2026, at approximately 2:44 a.m. EDT.
The debris is expected to hit the western edge of the moon, particularly near Einstein Crater. The object, designated 2025-010D, is a 13-meter-tall upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket traveling at a speed of about 9,400 kilometers per hour.
Back in history, the rocket stage was launched on January 15, 2025, with two private moon missions. Blue Ghost Mission 1 from Firefly Aerospace and RESILIENCE from ispace.
The Blue Ghost successfully made a soft landing on March 2, 2025, becoming the first commercial mission to succeed on its first attempt. Conversely, RESILIENCE failed its landing attempt and crashed on June 4, 2025.
The discarded upper stage has been in a chaotic, 26-day elliptical orbit around Earth for more than a year, eventually falling into the moon’s gravity.
The European Space Agency is currently tracking about 35,000 objects in orbit, highlighting the increasing density of human-made junk in the Earth-moon system. While this impact poses no threat to Earth, the debris buildup could become a risk as NASA’s Artemis program establishes a permanent presence on the moon.
NASA recently celebrated the successful crewed flight of Artemis II in April 2026. Future missions, including the Artemis IV moon landing, will rely heavily on hardware developed by private partners such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Because the impact on the moon’s edge will occur during a waning phase, astronomers think the crash will likely be too weak to observe directly with telescopes on Earth.
