NASA estimates the size of the hole SpaceX made in the moon
NASA has used its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to capture more pics of the mess on the moon left by a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage.
As The Register has previously reported, in 2025 private aerospace concerns Firefly and ispace hired a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for their respective Blue Ghost Mission 1 and RESILIENCE moonshots.
RESILIENCE did not live up to its name. Blue Ghost did rather better.
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The trajectory used to get the two craft to Luna meant the upper stage of the Falcon 9 was on a collision course with Earth’s sole permanent natural satellite. The vehicle met its end in early August, and South Korea’s space agency captured a few snaps.
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NASA did likewise between August 11 and 12, and on Tuesday shared some of them.
Four views of the crater made by a SpaceX Falcon 9 on the moon
NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines
You’re looking at four of those images, each taken from a different angle as LRO passed 60 miles (96km) above the lunar surface while travelling at a mile per second (1600 m/s).
Crater boffins who have seen the snaps apparently think they show the Falcon 9 made a hole 60 feet wide and 10 feet deep (18m x 3m).
We’re told that the darker area that fans around the crater in the upper-left image is rougher than the surroundings, as this surface material has been altered over a long time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. The brighter rays and splotch above the crater in the lower-right image is fresher material that was excavated from deeper below the surface.
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Meanwhile, in a distant Australian outpost …
Another piece of SpaceX hardware, the Starship used in the 13th test flight, has also turned up in the Australian territory of Christmas Island.
The island is a speck in the Indian Ocean more famous for its annual migration of red crabs (and its role Australian immigration policies) than its contributions to space exploration. It is, however, usefully close to the location where the Starship hit the water.
As SpaceX explained on X, its recovery team towed the spacecraft to the island to take advantage of the calm waters in its vicinity so engineers can perform extra post-flight analysis. The company hopes to return it to its Texas Starbase for more work.
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Photographer Chris Bray, who lives and works on Christmas Island, captured some cracking snaps of the spacecraft bobbing along on the ocean. ®
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