Musk Under Fire As Rogue SpaceX Rocket Set To Slam Against Moon On March 4

Experts have predicted that the Falcon 9 rocket launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX in 2015 will hit the Moon on March 4.

Photo Insert: SpaceX Falcon 9

The second stage of a Falcon 9 has been floating around in space for the past seven years in a somewhat chaotic orbit. The rocket was used in launching Musk’s first ever deep space mission that carried the Deep Space Climate Observatory on a million-mile journey, Antony Ashkenzi reported for Daily Express.

After the rocket reached its transfer orbit, its second stage became obsolete as the space weather satellite began its journey to a Sun-Earth LaGrange point. Since the rocket did not have enough fuel to take itself back to Earth, the four-ton portion of the Falcon 9 continued in a chaotic orbit around the Earth.

Earlier this month, Bill Gray, an astronomer who writes the widely used Project Pluto software, called out for amateur and professional astronomers to make additional observations of the rocket and refine his calculations.

He wrote: “Space junk can be a little tricky. I have a fairly complete mathematical model of what the Earth, Moon, Sun, and planets are doing and how their gravity is affecting the object.

“I have a rough idea of how much sunlight is pushing outward on the object, gently pushing it away from the Sun.

“This usually enables me to make predictions with a good bit of confidence. With all the data, we've got a certain impact at March 4, 12:25:39, latitude +4.93, east longitude 233.20, plus or minus a few seconds and a few kilometers.” Gray noted that this is the first unintentional case of a rocket smashing against the Moon.

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