A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket upper stage is on a collision course with the Moon, expected to strike on August 5, 2025 at 2:44 am ET. Astronomers have been tracking the 13.8-meter (45-foot) rocket body since it launched two lunar landers in January. The impact will occur on the Moon's near side.

Bill Gray, who writes the widely used Project Pluto software for tracking near-Earth objects, identified the debris as the second stage from the January 15, 2025 launch that carried Firefly’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Hakuto-R landers. Astronomers have accumulated 1,053 observations of the object, designated 2025-010D, since February 2026. The upper stage remained in a higher orbit after separating from the landers and avoided re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

Since the Moon has no atmosphere, the rocket body will strike the lunar surface intact at approximately seven times the speed of sound. Although the Moon will be visible from eastern North America and much of South America at impact time, Gray says the collision will likely be too faint to observe with Earth-based telescopes.