In February 2015, a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s US company, SpaceX, took off from Florida. The aircraft carried a climate observation satellite which was part of a program of the National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States. Although he managed to reach space, a problem in the propulsion system caused the second stage to (it was to reach 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, near the point where the James Webb telescope is located) will be wandering.
“It lacked the energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-Moon system,” meteorologist and astronomer Eric Berger explained in Ars Technica. Since he did not have enough fuel to return to Earth, remained in space dominated by the gravitational forces of the area, which have created an erratic orbit that will end with the 4-tonne rocket crashing into the Moon in just over a month.
The collision with our satellite is expected to occur on March 4 and it is estimated that collision with the equatorial part of the far side of the Moon, according to Bill Gray, developer of the software Pluto, dedicated to tracking near-Earth objects, asteroids, minor planets, and comets. However, solar radiation causes the rocket to accelerate, which, together with the “ambiguity in the measurement of rotation periods” of the object, makes it very difficult to predict the exact point where it will impact.
Impact at almost 5,000 kilometers per hour
“These unpredictable effects (on the rocket) are very small. But they will accumulate between now and March 4,” Gray added in statements. This second stage of the Falcon 9 was close to the Moon on January 5 and finally It will hit it on March 4, at an estimated speed of almost 5,000 kilometers per hour. (4 times the speed of sound).
Nevertheless, it’s not the first time a rocket hits our satellite. In 2009, NASA, on its LCROSS mission, carried out a controlled shock of the upper stage of a rocket to corroborate the presence of water. This module weighed just over half the weight of Falcon 9 and blew up 10,000 tons of material from the lunar surface, which was studied by a probe. This operation will be repeated with the SpaceX rocket, although at not have a probe and since it occurs on the hidden side of the Moon, there is not so much interest in the impact.
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