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ChinaScience

US team says Chinese rocket booster hit the moon with secret payload, leaving ‘very unusual’ crater

  • Researchers conclude ‘space junk’ that crashed into lunar surface last year was from Long March rocket used in China’s 2014 Chang’e-5 test mission
  • The impact blasted two craters, suggesting the booster was carrying ‘undisclosed’ devices or instruments, according to study

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The Chinese rocket remnant that crashed into the moon was part of a 2014 test mission to prepare for the better-known Chang’e-5 mission, shown here, which brought lunar samples back to Earth in 2020. Photo: Xinhua
Ling Xinin Ohio
Researchers in the US say a remnant of a Chinese rocket slammed into the moon’s surface last year with some unusual devices on board, according to a new study they say “conclusively” identifies a much-watched piece of space junk and highlights the importance of tracking defunct space hardware.
The experimental spacecraft Chang’e-5 T-1 blasted off in October 2014, carried by a three-stage Long March 3C rocket from the Xichang satellite launch centre in southwestern China.
The research team concluded the rocket’s upper stage crashed into the moon in March 2022, leaving a “very unusual” double crater on the lunar surface that might be a sign the rocket was carrying some “undisclosed, additional payload”, according to the paper published in the peer-reviewed Planetary Science Journal on Thursday.
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“You would expect it to wobble a little bit, particularly when you consider that the rocket body is a big empty shell with a heavy engine on one side,” according to Tanner Campbell, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona and the study’s first author.

“But this was just tumbling end over end, in a very stable way,” Campbell said in a statement released by the university.

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In other words, the rocket booster must have had a large mass mounted to the top end to balance the two engines at the bottom, which weighed about 544kg (1,200lbs) each without fuel. However, the two known instruments on the booster only weighed about 27kg, according to Campbell.

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