Rocket scrap on course towards the moon: Elon Musk and Space X are probably not to blame after all

Created: 02/21/2022, 13:10

By: Yasina Hipp

A missile is on a collision course with the moon.

On March 4, 2022 he is supposed to hit the moon.

An expert is now changing his mind as to who the missile is to be assigned to.

Munich – SpaceX founder Elon Musk can breathe a sigh of relief – if he was previously impressed by the allegations.

His company was suspected of being responsible for rocket part that inadvertently headed for the moon.

The fragment has been tumbling in a chaotic orbit through the Earth-Moon system since February 2015.

Bill Gray, developer of software used by professional and amateur astronomers to observe near-Earth objects, was certain that the SpaceX rocket part will impact the far side of the moon on March 4th.

Now Gray changes his mind - not about the date of impact, but about the originator of the rocket part.

Instead of SpaceX, now a Chinese rocket: "Object (wrongly) identified as 2015-007B"

When asked by a NASA engineer, the astronomer checked his data again and indeed: He must have made a mistake in identifying the object.

In a blog post, he writes: "I (mistakenly) identified this object as 2015-007B, the second stage of the DSCOVR spacecraft" – that is, Elon Musk's SpaceX spacecraft that was launched into space in February 2015.

Gray has now told the US technology magazine

that he is certain that the object is part of a Long March 3C rocket that the Chinese space agency used for the launch of its Chang'e 5-T1 mission in October 2014 had used.

"If you trace the orbit back to the launch of the Chinese spacecraft, it makes a lot of sense," Gray said.

"It leads to an orbit that will pass the moon at the right time after launch."

Instead of SpaceX, now a Chinese rocket

Normally rocket parts are not really interesting for astronomers.

They are just remnants of the transporters that are supposed to get the space missions on the right track.

After launch, the rockets break up in several stages.

For example, the first rocket stage is prepared for another launch at SpaceX after returning to earth.

The second stage normally burns up and thus disappears.

If the rocket part of the Chinese space agency collides with the moon in a few days, according to Gray, it would be the first unintentional impact of space debris on the moon.

He sees this as an opportunity for NASA's "Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter" (LRO) and "Chandrayaan-2" from India to examine a fresh impact crater.

The suspected impact will not be visible from Earth.