New images reveal the impact site of SpaceX rocket’s moon collision

Fresh photographs from NASA's lunar orbiter have provided the most detailed look yet at a new 60-foot-wide scar on the moon. The crater was formed when a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage collided with the lunar surface following a mission earlier this year.

The rocket originally took flight on January 15, 2025, tasked with delivering two commercial landers toward the moon. While the primary booster returned to Earth as intended, the second stage remained in space, where orbital physics eventually pulled it into a crash course with the lunar landscape.

A Global Effort to Spot the Scar

Tracking the impact was a multi-national endeavor. After the crash on August 5, the European Southern Observatory in Chile and South Korea’s Danuri orbiter were among the first to flag the crash site, providing preliminary data for NASA's high-resolution follow-up.

To get the perfect shot, NASA engineers had to precisely tilt the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) as it zipped over the moon at speeds of one mile per second. It took six days for the satellite's path to align perfectly with the impact zone for the final image capture.

NASA noted that the timing required extreme accuracy. Because the moon rotates beneath the orbiter, being off by just 10 seconds would have caused the cameras to miss the crater by as much as 10 miles.

Science from the Destruction

While the collision was not originally part of the flight plan, space experts are not worried about the damage. NASA lunar scientist Kelsey Young explained that this is a safe way to dispose of hardware, noting that the moon is constantly battered by space debris like meteors and comets.

“This is not something we’re really concerned about. This is actually a technically accepted and safe method of disposing of hardware in low lunar orbit,” Young stated in a recent social media update.

Researchers are now using the crash data to study the lunar crust. These observations will help engineers design better shields for future moon bases and protect astronauts from the natural impacts that frequently occur on the airless surface.