LRO scientists locate impact on Moon from rocket stage believed to be Chinese
The science team for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) today released images identifying the location on the Moon where a mystery rocket stage crashed in March 2022.
The image to the right shows the before and after LRO images, with the impact at the center of the second photo, showing as two superimposed craters. Since the sunlight in the second image come from the opposition direction as the first, the shadows in all previously existing craters are reversed.
Surprisingly the crater is actually two craters, an eastern crater [59 feet diameter] superimposed on a western crater [52 feet diameter]. The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the rocket body had large masses at each end. Typically a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the motor end; the rest of the rocket stage mainly consists of an empty fuel tank. Since the origin of the rocket body remains uncertain, the double nature of the crater may help to indicate its identity.
No other rocket body impacts on the Moon created double craters. The four Apollo SIV-B craters were somewhat irregular in outline (Apollos 13, 14, 15, 17) and were substantially larger [>115 feet in diameter] than each of the double craters. The maximum width [95 feet] of the double crater of the mystery rocket body was near that of the S-IVBs.
Though the evidence strongly points to this stage being from China, that fact is not certain, and China denies that conclusion.
Regardless, the unexpected double nature of the impact only increases the mystery, as it suggests that rocket stage had a mass distribution different than past stages.
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The science team for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) today released images identifying the location on the Moon where a mystery rocket stage crashed in March 2022.
The image to the right shows the before and after LRO images, with the impact at the center of the second photo, showing as two superimposed craters. Since the sunlight in the second image come from the opposition direction as the first, the shadows in all previously existing craters are reversed.
Surprisingly the crater is actually two craters, an eastern crater [59 feet diameter] superimposed on a western crater [52 feet diameter]. The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the rocket body had large masses at each end. Typically a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the motor end; the rest of the rocket stage mainly consists of an empty fuel tank. Since the origin of the rocket body remains uncertain, the double nature of the crater may help to indicate its identity.
No other rocket body impacts on the Moon created double craters. The four Apollo SIV-B craters were somewhat irregular in outline (Apollos 13, 14, 15, 17) and were substantially larger [>115 feet in diameter] than each of the double craters. The maximum width [95 feet] of the double crater of the mystery rocket body was near that of the S-IVBs.
Though the evidence strongly points to this stage being from China, that fact is not certain, and China denies that conclusion.
Regardless, the unexpected double nature of the impact only increases the mystery, as it suggests that rocket stage had a mass distribution different than past stages.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Perhaps the payload had not detached? It would explain having a large mass at either ends of the booster.
That is quite a splash. Wonder where it came from? Does it have to be a rocket?
I did not know that Apollo stages crashed on the Moon. SOP at the time, but as a space-faring people, we need to ensure our act is clean. Don’t need to be contributing to the used spacecraft parts recovery market.
Blair Ivey: There actually were scientific reasons for crashing those Apollo upper stages on the Moon. The astronauts placed seismometers at each landing site, and geologists used the data from those impacts to better determine details about the Moon’s interior.