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NASA Estimates The Size Of The Hole SpaceX Made In The Moon
EDITORS: THIS HAS BEEN PRODUCED BY SOFTWARE UNDER DEVELOPMENT - THE CONTENT MAY REQUIRE EXTENSIVE EDITING
https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/08/19/nasa-estimates-the-size-of-the-hole-spacex-made-in-the-moon/5289425 [theregister.com]
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 [theregister.com], 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 [theregister.com]. Blue Ghost did rather better [theregister.com].
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 [theregister.com]. The vehicle met its end in early August, and South Korea's space agency captured a few snaps [theregister.com].
NASA did likewise between August 11 and 12, and on Tuesday shared [nasa.gov] some of them.
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.
Another piece of SpaceX hardware, the Starship used in the 13th test flight [theregister.com], has also turned up in the Australian territory of Christmas Island.
The island is a speck in the Indian Ocean [app.goo.gl] more famous for its annual migration of red crabs [youtube.com] (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 [x.com] 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.
