A South Korean lunar orbiter got the shot that virtually every telescope and spacecraft attempted to snap on Wednesday when a wayward SpaceX rocket accidentally smashed into the moon.
The Danuri lunar orbiter recorded the site before and after the collision. It started watching the zone about 30 minutes before the crash, then adjusted its orbit to pass over the site several times, according to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, or KARI. Officials said the Falcon 9 rocket made moonfall at 2:34 a.m. ET Aug. 5. The spacecraft completed eight photoshoots.
“Through this observation, changes in the terrain around the impact site and traces of ejecta spread were confirmed,” the space agency said in a translated X post, referring to the debris thrown from the high-speed impact.
The observations give researchers an unusual chance to look at changes caused by the collision. The new images will be combined with follow-up observations from NASA‘s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is expected to photograph the new crater from orbit, to support international research into how impacts reshape the moon.
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The roughly 4-ton Falcon 9 upper stage struck the moon after spending more than a year drifting through space. The crash was unintentional, caused by a combination of solar activity and gravity gradually pushing the stray rocket onto a collision course.
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“We actively work to be as responsible as possible with hardware left in space to ensure space safety, including for more complex missions,” SpaceX said in a statement. “Impacts like this are rare, but they can happen with objects in these types of orbits, and we worked with NASA on the optimal disposal solution.”
Ground-based observers could not directly see the impact. But astronomers reported using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile to detect a plume of material that likely came from the crash. Independent space trackers also concluded the rocket reached the predicted impact site near Einstein Crater, close to the boundary between the moon’s near and far sides.
The rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Jan. 2025, carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience lunar landers. After releasing both spacecraft, the spent stage remained in space as planned instead of returning to Earth. Blue Ghost later became the first privately built spacecraft to achieve a successful lunar landing, while Resilience crashed during its landing attempt.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches two moon landers into space on Jan. 15, 2025, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Credit: SpaceX
Coincidentally, the South Korean orbiter took the same type of ride to get to the moon. It launched on the same class of rocket — another SpaceX Falcon 9 — almost exactly four years ago, on Aug. 4, 2022. Its core mission is to map the lunar surface, measure magnetic and gamma-ray data, and identify future landing sites.
The SpaceX incident has renewed concerns about space debris around the moon as lunar missions increase.
NASA has planned a steady stream of robotic missions in support of its Artemis program in coordination with private spacecraft operators, while both SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing lunar landers for future astronaut missions. Scientists have warned that accidental impacts could become more problematic as traffic around the moon increases.
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