Waiting for the first photos
The first photos are expected within the next 24–72 hours, when the probe flies over the impact site and transmits data to Earth.
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The school bus-sized rocket stage headed to the Moon back in January 2025, when SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the US company Firefly Aerospace’s lunar landing module.
Since this mission required more energy than usual flights near Earth, the second rocket stage did not return to the atmosphere but remained orbiting in space.
Astronomers only determined earlier this year that the uncontrolled rocket part was moving on a trajectory that would end in a collision with the Moon. The impact occurred at about 8,700 km/h.
Formed a 4-meter deep crater
According to NASA calculations, the impact was expected to form a crater about 18 meters in diameter and 4 meters deep.
It is also expected that lunar dust and rock debris were ejected into the environment, whose analysis may help better understand the Moon’s surface properties and improve methods for monitoring space objects.
The rocket stage crashed into the Einstein crater region on the western side of the Moon.
This location is poorly visible from Earth, so it was not possible to observe the impact itself. NASA plans to compare lunar surface photos before and after the event to assess the formed crater.
Collisions of space debris with the Moon are rare.
In 2022, a Chinese rocket stage crashed into the Moon, and in 2009 NASA deliberately directed a rocket stage to the lunar surface to study the dust cloud caused by the impact.
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