New NASA images reveal how an out-of-control SpaceX rocket made a 60-foot crater when it crashed into the Moon. The SpaceX Falcon 9’s upper stage created the massive crater on the Moon when it crashed onto the surface on August 5.
As part of NASA’s effort to commercialize lunar exploration, the rocket sent two private landers carrying experiments, along with a small rover, to the Moon in 2025.
After floating through orbit for almost a year, the Falcon rocket’s upper stage crashed into giant space rock at 5,400 mph. Photos taken on August 11 and 12 by the space agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show a 60-foot-wide crater encircled by streaks of lunar rock propelled outward by the rocket’s impact.
According to Space.com, the 8,800-pound rocket body “was abandoned in a Moon-crossing high-Earth orbit” and it was pulled away from Earth by a combination of solar radiation and the Moon’s gravitational attraction.
“What has happened is, essentially, a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path towards the moon,” said Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science and Dragon programs at SpaceX.
Locating the SpaceX rocket crash site wasn’t a simple task
“To capture imagery of the impact, engineers tilted the spacecraft so its cameras would point toward the crater each time LRO passed about 60 miles above the Moon, traveling 1 mile per second,” NASA said in a statement. “The orbiter circles the Moon from pole to pole every two hours, while the Moon slowly rotates underneath it. To photograph a specific spot, the spacecraft must wait until that location turns into view, which took six days in this case.”
“Getting the pointing right was only half the challenge; timing had to be accurate as well,” NASA continued. “If the camera snapped even 10 seconds too early or too late, the target would drift off-center by 10 miles.”