News JVTech In 2022, an ‘ownerless’ rocket crashed on the Moon: everyone thought it was Elon Musk, but a study confirmed its true origin
Published on 16/12/2024 at 08:50
Share :
Elon Musk knows a thing or two about unusual projects, the billionaire touches a little bit of everything in the tech field. But one thing is certain, he is far from being the only one used to crazy projects…
A crater from SpaceX or China?
On March 4, 2022, a rocket hit the far side of the Moon, creating a 29-meter-wide double crater near the Hertzprung crater. Initially, it was determined that it belonged to SpaceX and was a Falcon 9 from the DSCOVR mission, launched in 2015. However, a second candidate was quickly discovered: the third stage of a Long March 3C, part of the Chang’e 5-T1 mission. Now, a group of researchers has reached a definitive conclusion. According to a study published in the Planetary Science Journal, led by Tanner Campbell, doctoral student in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Arizona, analysis of the object’s trajectory made it possible to conclude that it belonged to a Chinese mission.
According to the team of researchers from the Catalina Sky Survey, a program responsible for detecting and studying asteroids that could pose a problem to Earth, has discovered an object that moved at high speed between the Earth and the Moonwhich they baptized WE0913Awithout however knowing his identity. After studying how light bounced off its surface and how it moved in space, they determined it was most likely a Chang’e 5-T1, launched in 2014 as part of the China’s lunar exploration program. Although the Chinese space agency claimed that this launcher burned up in Earth’s atmosphere upon re-entry, US Space Command revealed that it did not return to the planet.
If it’s not SpaceX, then it’s China
This new study sheds additional light on the creation of this crater. The publication mentions that it compared the evolution of the brightness of WE0913A with that of thousands of hypothetical space objects. This allowed Tanner Campbell to understand that as an object long subject to the gravitational forces of the Earth, Moon and sunlight, it was expected to wobble a bit, being as it was an empty shell with a heavy engine at one end. However, it turned out that it was spinning, but very stable.
Photo credit: Unsplash
According to the researchers, the object resembles a dumbbell, with two large masses at each end. In this case, one would be the two engines weighing 1,090 kilograms without fuel, while at the other end there would be another mass that would give WE0913A its stabilitywhich would explain the type of hole he opened. According to the researcher, this is the first time that a double crater has been observed. Additionally, it is known that Chang’e 5-T1 had an almost direct downward impact, so for both holes to be generated, it required two approximately equal masses separated from each other. Tanner Campbell believes that this second mass was too large to be an instrument platform, and so it could have been a support structure or some sort of additional instrumentation, although the doctoral student admits that this will probably never be known.
