At long last, a Moon landing for SpaceX — just not the kind it was hoping for.
After months of anticipation, a discarded upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is believed to have careened into the Moon on early Wednesday morning. It exploded on impact, causing a flash that may have been visible from Earth, and created a large crater.
Astronomers, who have been closely monitoring the stray rocket, projected it would smash into the lunar surface at 5,400 miles per hour, which is about seven times the speed of sound here on our home planet. At such a velocity, NASA estimated it would blow open a crater about 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep, though others have estimated that it could be up to 100 feet wide.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been promising the Moon when it comes to SpaceX’s lunar ambitions. Its Starship megarocket is being built to bring cargo to the lunar surface, and hopefully deposit NASA astronauts there in a historic return. He even plans to construct a Moon base with a factory that can churn out AI satellites. But so far, no SpaceX craft has made it into the Moon’s orbit, let alone land on it.
