NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Images Falcon 9 Crater on Moon, With Some Help From a Korean Spacecraft

A SpaceX Falcon upper stage crashed into the Moon on August 5th. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of the crash site from different viewing angles and with different sunlight angles. The images showed that the crater is about 18 meters wide and about 3 meters deep. SpaceX says the crash was an accident.

The top 3

  1. SpaceX Falcon 9's Recent Moon Crater: A discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the Moon on August 5, 2026, creating a new crater approximately 60 feet (18 meters) wide and less than 10 feet (3 meters) deep near Einstein Crater.
  2. Apollo S-IVB Stages for Seismic Studies: Starting with Apollo 13 in 1970, five Saturn V S-IVB third stages were deliberately crashed into the Moon to generate seismic signals, which were measured by seismometers to study the lunar interior.
  3. LCROSS Mission's Water Ice Confirmation: In 2009, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) intentionally crashed its Centaur rocket stage into the Moon's Cabeus crater, confirming the presence of water ice in a permanently shadowed region.

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