Out-of-control SpaceX rocket will smash into the moon in weeks

[Judi Lynn]

By Ben Turner published about 16 hours ago

The rocket is expected to hit our lunar companion at 5,771 mph (9,288 km/h).



SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carrying the NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory spacecraft as it blasted off from Cape Canaveral in February 2015. The rocket will collide with the moon in a matter of weeks. (Image credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

A SpaceX rocket that launched nearly seven years ago is now on course to crash into the moon, astronomers have predicted.

The Falcon 9 booster was launched in February 2015 as part of a mission to send a climate observation satellite 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, but since running out of fuel, the 4.4-ton (4 metric tons) rocket has been hurtling around space in a chaotic orbit.

The rocket is now expected to hit the far side of the moon while traveling at a blistering speed of 5,771 mph (9,288 km/h) on March 4, 2022, according to Bill Gray, the developer of software that tracks near-Earth objects.

In a Jan. 21 blog post, Gray noted that the space junk had "made a close lunar flyby on January 5" but is set for "a certain impact at March 4."

More:
https://www.livescience.com/spacex-rocket-to-hit-moon

[FreepFryer]

1. It'll buff out. Nice job dinging the Moon, you corporate assholes. (Nt)

[PJMcK]

2. The LM Eagle may still be in orbit around the Moon

In 1969, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, they used the Lunar Module, Eagle, to land on and return from the lunar surface. When the LM’s ascent stage docked with the command /service modules Columbia, and the astronauts transferred to the mother ship, they left Eagle in orbit. Subsequent Apollo missions, (except for Apollo 13, of course), purposefully crashed their ascent stages in order to measure the Moon’s seismology.

This video by YouTuber Scott Manley, makes a strong case that Eagle may still be in orbit around the Moon.

It’s highly unlikely to ever happen, but it would be an amazing historical artifact if the Eagle could be recovered and placed alongside the Wright Brothers’ first airplane.

Humans have left a lot of junk in space as we’ve explored the last frontier.

[Chainfire]

3. Just one more crater, who will ever notice?

[eppur_se_muova]

4. 5,771 mph (9,288 km/h) ... I'm predicting no survivors.

That's Mach 7.5, not Mach 4 ... oh wait ...

[cstanleytech]

5. Don't give up hope just yet...........tardigrades are pretty tough to kill.

[Eugene]

6. Astronomers now say the rocket about to strike the Moon is not a Falcon 9

Astronomers now say the rocket about to strike the Moon is not a Falcon 9 (Ars Technica)

It's probable that the impact object comes from a Chinese rocket launched in 2014.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/actually-a-falcon-9-rocket-is-not-going-to-hit-the-moon/