Bill Gray (Project Pluto) predicts a Falcon 9 upper stage from the Jan 2025 Blue Ghost/Hakuto-R launch will impact the Moon on August 5.
Key Takeaways
Object 2025-10D is a Falcon 9 second stage in a lopsided ~26-day Earth orbit; perigee ~220,000 km, apogee ~510,000 km, intersecting lunar orbit.
Impact speed will be several times the speed of sound; no danger to humans or nearby probes given current lunar activity levels.
The stage was too high for US military tracking but detectable by amateur astronomers and asteroid surveys.
Gray flagged this as evidence of carelessness in disposing of rocket bodies on lunar trajectories, not a one-off edge case.
Blue Ghost landed successfully; Hakuto-R did not. The payload canister reentered and burned up; only the upper stage persisted.
Hacker News Comment Review
No substantive HN discussion yet; two brief comments suggest the impact should be made intentional and controlled rather than treated as passive junk disposal.
