Portion of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a collision course with the moon - Yahoo

An upper stage portion of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the most active in the world, is on a collision course with the moon, an astronomer warns.

Billionaire Elon Musk 's SpaceX will see a vehicle reach the moon much sooner and under much different circumstances than the company imagined.

The moon has been a major source of interest for both SpaceX and NASA, with the two entities in partnership for Musk's company to develop a lunar lander for astronauts to ride to the surface. Musk also has a vision of SpaceX leading the charge to develop a city on the moon.

But it won't be SpaceX's Starship that will be the company's first rocket to reach the moon.

Instead, a portion of a Falcon 9 rocket is on a collision course with the moon after orbiting high above Earth for more than a year. At least, that's the conclusion of an independent astronomer who used orbital tracking software to determine the approximate date, location and speed at which the piece of hardware will be traveling when it crashes into our celestial neighbor.

And in a bit of irony, the Falcon 9 in question was the same launch vehicle used in January 2025 to propel a commercial U.S. lunar lander on its own much more controlled journey to the moon's surface.

Here's everything to know about the Falcon 9 rocket and why it's due for a lunar impact.

Piece of Falcon 9 to crash into moon, astronomer predicts

Since January 2025, a portion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has been orbiting high above Earth, taking 26 days to complete one trip around the planet.

But on Aug. 5, the section of the launch vehicle, known as the upper stage, is projected to crash into the moon's near side, which permanently faces Earth.

The prediction comes from Bill Gray, an astronomer who writes the widely used Project Pluto software to track near-Earth objects like asteroids, comets and human-made spacecraft. Gray's analysis was based on ground observations from telescopes and surveys of the upper stage's orbit.

Because the moon has no atmosphere, this particular upper stage won't burn up before impacting the moon, which Gray forecasts is due to happen at 2:44 a.m. The object, designated 2025-010D, will be traveling at about 2.43 km a second, or 5,400 mph, when it strikes the moon, according to Gray's analysis.

What is the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket?

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is the most active rocket in the world.

Standing 230 feet tall, the two-stage rocket is classified as a medium-lift launch vehicle capable of carrying about 50,000 pounds of cargo to orbit.

SpaceX has launched the Falcon 9 hundreds of times from both Florida's Space Coast and the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to deliver its Starlink broadband internet satellites to low-Earth orbit. The Falcon 9 is also the only American-made rocket that propels astronauts aboard SpaceX's Dragon crew capsule to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9's 45-foot upper stage is designed to travel in orbit after separating from the lower stage that provides the initial burst of thrust at liftoff. The lower stage of SpaceX's rocket – also known as the booster – eventually returns to Earth for a controlled landing and is recovered to be reused for future launches.

Does Elon Musk own SpaceX? What to know about rocket company

SpaceX is the commercial spaceflight company that Musk, the world's richest man, founded in 2002.

The cornerstone of Musk's business empire, SpaceX benefits from billions of dollars in government contracts to provide launch services for classified satellites and other payloads using both its Falcon 9 rocket and its more powerful Falcon Heavy.

SpaceX is also developing its massive Starship rocket at its Starbase headquarters in South Texas. Considered the world's largest rocket, Starship could be central to SpaceX and NASA's ambitions to send humans to the moon and Mars.