Elon Musk: stray rocket headed for collision course with the moon

The TSLA CEO Elon Musk said that the stray Falcon 9 booster at Tesla Inc. is headed for a collision course with the moon, citing an independent space researcher in orbital dynamics.

The rocket is set to crash into the far side of the moon.

The collision will probably go unobserved from Earth and possibly result in a fresh lunar crater, as per the researcher Bill Gray, who first discovered the rocket's course and alerted other observers for confirmation.

Gray has tracked space junk, asteroids and objects near Earth for about 25 years, according to the report.

As per Gray, this may be the first unintentional case of space junk.

Why It Matters: Musk wants to colonise Mars and founded SpaceX with the mission to make humanity multi-planet. He said he remains highly confident that SpaceX will land humans on Mars by the year 2026.

See also: Elon Musk Says SpaceX's Starship Fleet Can Deliver 1,000 Times More Payload Than All Rockets On Earth Combined

Musk had said in July that SpaceX is developing a fully-reusable starship that can deliver a payload of around 150 tonnes to low Earth Orbit and about 250 tonnes when expendable.

SpaceX aims to replace its existing rockets — Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 — and to be able to carry much more mass into space.