Enlarge / On February 11, 2015, a Falcon 9 lifted off from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, carrying the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite on SpaceX’s first deep space mission. (credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX launched its 1st interplanetary mission nearly seven years ago. After the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage completed a long burn to reach the transfer orbit, NOAA’s Deep Space Weather Observatory began its journey to a Sun-Earth LaGrange point more than 1 million km from the Earth.
By that point, the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage was high enough that it did not have enough fuel in order to return into Earth’s atmosphere. It also lacked the energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-Moon system, and so it has been following a somewhat chaotic orbit since February 2015.
Now, according to sky observers, the spent second stage’s orbit is on course to be able to intersect with the Moon. According to Bill Gray, who writes the widely used Project Pluto software to track Near-Earth Objects, asteroids, minor planets, and comets, such an impact could come in March.
Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
