Unexpected! SpaceX's Rocket On Course to Hit the Moon Shocked NASA...
Unexpected! SpaceX's Rocket On Course to Hit the Moon Shocked NASA...
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#alphatech
#techalpha
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0:00 Unexpected Impact
0:33 Silent Partner
3:03 Double Crater
6:09 Orbit Detective
8:58 Space Karma
11:33 Lunar Workhorse
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Unexpected! SpaceX's Rocket On Course to Hit the Moon Shocked NASA...
This is unexpected! SpaceX's Falcon 9 actually has the ability to deliver cargo to the Moon — but in a very different way! Scientists have just discovered that the upper stage of a Falcon 9, which went missing after a special mission in early 2025, is now on course to slam into the lunar surface in August this year. The impact is expected to create a large crater and bring a whole series of scientific research benefits that even NASA never anticipated. So what exactly is going on with this story?
Let’s dive in and find out!
Unexpected! SpaceX's Rocket On Course to Hit the Moon Shocked NASA...
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is famous for its near-perfect reliability, powering billion-dollar contracts and record-breaking launch cadence. But this time, it delivered an unexpected twist that neither SpaceX nor NASA saw coming.The upper stage from a January 2025 mission has become an artificial asteroid, now on a collision course with the Moon in August 2026 — a journey that took 19 months, compared to the usual 3 to 7 days for a normal lunar mission.Let’s go back to the beginning.On January 15, 2025, at 1:11 a.m. EST, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The night sky lit up as the rocket carried NASA’s CLPS mission, delivering two commercial lunar landers: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience from Japan.The outcomes were very different. Blue Ghost landed successfully in March 2025, sending back stunning images of lunar sunsets. Resilience, however, lost contact and crashed just 90 seconds before touchdown. But the real story lies with the “silent partner” that sent both landers on their way: the Falcon 9 upper stage, designated 2025-010D.
Unexpected! SpaceX's Rocket On Course to Hit the Moon Shocked NASA...
Normally, after delivering its payload into lunar transfer orbit, the upper stage would perform a deorbit burn and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. This time, the massive 13.8-meter-tall, roughly 4-ton stage never returned. Instead, it became trapped in a highly elliptical orbit with a 26-day period — sometimes swinging as close as 220,000 km from Earth, other times stretching out beyond 510,000 km, past the Moon’s orbit.What caused this? According to experts, it wasn’t just gravity from Earth, the Moon, and the Sun. The tiny but persistent force of solar radiation pressure — sunlight pushing on the stage — slowly altered its trajectory over many months, like gently blowing on a balloon for over a year until it drifts in a completely new direction.Fortunately, one person spotted this unusual path early on: independent astronomer Bill Gray, known as the “orbit detective.” Using his own Project Pluto software, Gray tracked the object 2025-010D with more than 1,000 observations from telescopes and asteroid surveys worldwide.
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