A discarded SpaceX rocket stage is expected to crash into the moon early Wednesday in an unplanned high-speed impact after drifting through space for more than a year, according to Reuters. The object, the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket that launched Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience lunar landers in January 2025, is scheduled to strike the moon at about 06:35 a.m. GMT. Unlike most Falcon 9 second stages, which re-enter Earth’s atmosphere after completing their missions, this stage remained in space because the lunar mission required additional thrust. After releasing its payload and exhausting its fuel, the rocket stage became uncontrollable and continued orbiting the Earth and moon. A Chinese rocket stage struck the lunar surface in 2022 after a test mission, while NASA deliberately crashed a rocket stage into the moon in 2009 to study the material ejected by the impact.