Falcon 9 upper stage slated to strike Moon’s near side in August

Astronomers project that a spent Falcon 9 upper stage from SpaceX’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will impact the Moon on August 5, near Einstein crater on the western limb, at about 2:44 a.m. ET. The roughly 4,000-kg stage has been in a highly elliptical Earth orbit (~26 days) since January 2025; timing and location are expected to be refined with more observations. The impact would occur at roughly 2.43 km/s (about 8,700 km/h) and is not expected to be visible from Earth or pose any risk. The U.S. Space Force tracks the object, with 1,053 observations recorded as of February 2026, marking a rare instance of an artificial object hitting the Moon.