RESILIENCE did not live up to its name<\/a>. Blue Ghost did rather better<\/a>.<\/p>\n The trajectory used to get the two craft to Luna meant the upper stage of the Falcon 9 was on a collision course with Earth\u2019s sole permanent natural satellite<\/a>. The vehicle met its end in early August, and South Korea\u2019s space agency captured a few snaps<\/a>.<\/p>\n NASA did likewise between August 11 and 12, and on Tuesday shared<\/a> some of them.<\/p>\n \n Four views of the crater made by a SpaceX Falcon 9 on the moon You\u2019re looking at four of those images, each taken from a different angle as LRO passed 60 miles (96km) above the lunar surface while travelling at a mile per second (1600 m\/s).<\/p>\n Crater boffins who have seen the snaps apparently think they show the Falcon 9 made a hole 60 feet wide and 10 feet deep (18m x 3m).<\/p>\n We\u2019re told that the darker area that fans around the crater in the upper-left image is rougher than the surroundings, as this surface material has been altered over a long time by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. The brighter rays and splotch above the crater in the lower-right image is fresher material that was excavated from deeper below the surface.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in a distant Australian outpost \u2026<\/p>\n Another piece of SpaceX hardware, the Starship used in the 13th test flight<\/a>, has also turned up in the Australian territory of Christmas Island.<\/p>\n The island is a speck in the Indian Ocean<\/a> more famous for its annual migration of red crabs<\/a>\u00a0(and its role Australian immigration policies)\u00a0 than its contributions to space exploration. It is, however, usefully close to the location where the Starship hit the water.<\/p>\n As SpaceX explained<\/a> on X, its recovery team towed the spacecraft to the island to take advantage of the calm waters in its vicinity so engineers can perform extra post-flight analysis. The company hopes to return it to its Texas Starbase for more work.<\/p>\n Photographer Chris Bray, who lives and works on Christmas Island, captured<\/a> some cracking snaps of the spacecraft bobbing along on the ocean. \u00ae<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5289438.webp\")
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\n NASA Goddard\/Intuitive Machines\n <\/p>\n