Fri 28 January 2022:
NASA announced Thursday that it plans to survey the crater left by the remains of a SpaceX rocket, which is expected to crash into the Moon in early March, calling the event “an exciting research opportunity.”
The rocket was launched in 2015 to place a NASA satellite into orbit, and its second stage, or booster, has since been floating in space, as is common for such pieces of space technology.
“On its current trajectory, the second stage is expected to impact the far side of the Moon on March 4, 2022,” a NASA spokeswoman told AFP.
The impact of the four-ton rocket chunk will not be visible in real time from Earth, nor will NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is currently orbiting the Moon, be in a “position to observe the impact as it happens,” according to a spokeswoman.
However, the LRO could be used later to capture images for before-and-after comparisons.
Finding the crater “will be challenging and might take weeks to months,” according to the spokeswoman, who added that the “unique event presents an exciting research opportunity.”
Studying a crater formed by a hurtling object with a known mass and speed (it will be traveling at 9,000 kilometers per hour), as well as the material that the impact stirs up, could help advance selenology, or the scientific study of the moon.
Spacecraft have previously intentionally collided with the Moon for scientific purposes, such as during the Apollo missions to test seismometers, but this is the first unintentional collision to be detected.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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