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SpaceX Rocket Stage to Hit Moon May Actually Be Chinese Rocket
A little over three weeks ago, astronomers reported that they were tracking what was believed to be the second stage of a SpaceX rocket launched in February 2015. Now, astronomers believe that the object may actually be a booster for China’s Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission. The rocket launched in October 2014 to conduct atmospheric re-entry tests for China’s 2020 Moon sample return mission.
The object, set to hit the far side of the Moon on March 4th, has been tracked by an independent researcher in orbital dynamics, Bill Gray. Gray previously found and identified it as a SpaceX rocket second stage booster in 2015 and has been using his own software to track it since. After his software gave Gray a strange reading, he realized it was because the object was set to hit the Moon.
After Gray’s discovery, other astronomers confirmed his findings and he published an estimated location and time of impact on his blog, Project Pluto. On February 12th, 2022, Gray received an email from Jon Giorgini at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Gray had initially reported that the SpaceX second stage had a close flyby of the Moon just two days after launch, but a review of JPL data showed that the rocket's trajectory didn’t fly as close to the Moon as Gray’s calculations.
