Source:Astronomers now say the rocket about to strike the Moon is not a Falcon 9 | Ars Technica About three weeks ago Ars Technica first reported that astronomers were tracking the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, and were increasingly confident that it would strike the Moon on March 4. This story set off a firestorm of media activity. Much of this coverage criticized SpaceX for failing to properly dispose of the second stage of its Falcon 9 rocket after the launch of NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory mission, or DSCOVR, in 2015. The British tabloids, in particular, had a field day. Even the genteel European Space Agency tut-tutted, noting that it takes care to preserve enough fuel to put spent rocket stages into stable orbits around the Sun. . . . It was an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jon Giorgini, who realized this object was not in fact the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket. He wrote to Gray on Saturday morning explaining that the DSCOVR spacecraft's trajectory did not go particularly close to the Moon, and that it would therefore be a little strange if the second stage strayed close enough to strike it. This prompted Gray to dig back into his data, and identify other potential candidates. He soon found one—the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 mission launched in October 2014 on a Long March 3C rocket. This lunar mission sent a small spacecraft to the Moon as a precursor test for an eventual lunar sample return mission. The launch time and lunar trajectory are almost an exact match for the orbit of the object that will hit the Moon in March. "In a sense, this remains 'circumstantial' evidence," Gray wrote. "But I would regard it as fairly convincing evidence. So I am persuaded that the object about to hit the moon on 2022 Mar 4 at 12:25 UTC is actually the Chang'e 5-T1 rocket stage." There is a lot of envy and hate directed at Elon Musk who keeps pulling off engineering miracles. Bob Wilson
And people wonder why they call it "fake news".... Which object is really "litter?" The upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket that does NOT hit the moon but continues to tumble about in space or a Long March 3 rocket body that actually HITS the moon and is rendered more static, if not less asthetic? After all....even a rocket booster whose launcher budgets fuel and flight profile to park itself in a "stable orbit around the sun" does little more than the equivalent of what I used to do in the 1980s when we threw trash off the stern of a Navy Ship (or used a submarine TDU.) You're throwing it into a seemingly infinite body where we're "sure" that it will be of no concern. As for the CHICOMMS......well nobody has the stones to call them out on much these days lest the "usual suspects" accuse them of high crimes and misdemeanors..... Noodle dance.....stumble. I do not know about actual MIRACLES. Maybe just out-of-the box thinking? Stable Genius? Hate is nearly always a two way street, and Elon loves to play in the traffic......
There are many many pieces of launch debris from lunar and interplanetary missions, running around in untracked solar orbits with the possibility of eventual future returns. One that came back for a temporary visit in 2002-3 is believed to be the 3rd stage of Apollo 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J002E3 How a long-gone Apollo rocket returned to Earth | Astronomy.com It will revisit again, probably in the mid-2040s. On some future visit, it also could strike the moon or earth. But it ought not be any worse than other intentional moon strikes or earth re-entries.
I'm thinking that at least on the moon, somebody in a rover might be able to retrieve and use some of the carbon fiber or metal bits.....
