Rockets that will soon collide with the moon will be corrected to be 'made in China' instead of SpaceX

by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Regarding the information 'Prediction that SpaceX's rocket will be out of control and collide with the moon' reported in January 2022, the person who wrote the research that was the source of this report newly said that there was an error. Announced. According to this person, the rocket that the moon actually collides with is not made by SpaceX but 'made in China'.

Astronomers now say the rocket about to strike the Moon is not a Falcon 9 | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/actually-a-falcon-9-rocket-is-not-going-to-hit-the-moon/

In January 2022, Bill Gray, the developer of Project Pluto , a software for tracking celestial bodies passing near the earth, said, 'The SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 booster will be on the back of the moon on March 4, 2022. 'Collision with' was announced. According to Mr. Gray, it was confirmed that this booster passed a point about 9600 km from the moon by flyby as of 12:00 on January 5, 2022, and although there is an error depending on the shape of the booster, the moon is quite accurate. It was said that the calculation result of colliding with the surface was obtained.

This announcement was reported by the British letter The Guardian and the European Space Agency (ESA), and GIGAZINE also published an article on January 27.

Prediction that SpaceX rocket will be out of control and collide with the moon-GIGAZINE

by Michael Seeley

However, on February 12, 2022, Mr. Gray said, 'Although the calculation result that the booster collides with the back side of the moon is not wrong, the booster is not that of SpaceX's Falcon 9, but the Chinese lunar exploration satellite' Chang'e ' It belongs to ' No. 5 T1 '. '

Corrected identification of object about to hit the moon
https://www.projectpluto.com/temp/correct.htm

Gray changed his mind when he received a question from John Giorgini, who belongs to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a research institute under NASA. The question from Giorgini is, 'According to JPL's astronomical data tracking system, the Horizons System , the spacecraft launched by Falcon 9 did not seem to have passed in particular near the moon. It would be unnatural if the booster of the rocket that launched it passed near the moon even though it did not pass through. There is always an error in these numbers, but this error seems to be too large to ignore. I think. '

As a result of Mr. Gray's re-investigation on this question, it is misleading to think that the object that is expected to collide with the moon on March 4, 2022 is a Falcon 9 booster as Mr. Giorgini pointed out. It's big. After re-examining the candidates from this, the booster of Chang'e No. 5 T1 launched on October 23, 2014 was re-observed near the moon immediately after the launch date of Falcon 9 in February 2015, resulting in a misunderstanding. Gray concluded that it happened.

According to Gray's calculations, back calculation from the data observed in February 2015 suggests that the object in question flew by near the moon on October 28, 2014. According to Mr. Gray, it is 'reasonable' that the booster of Chang'e No. 5 T1 launched on the 23rd will fly by the vicinity of the moon on the 28th, including the position of the launch site and the launch angle. When you think about it, every element seems to point out that the object in question is the booster of Chang'e 5T1.

Mr. Gray's prediction is just circumstantial evidence, and there is no specific evidence linking the object that collides with the moon on March 4, 2022 to Chang'e 5T1. However, Gray acknowledged that, 'these evidences are quite convincing,' saying that on March 4, 2022, the object in question would collide with the moon. He commented that he was 'confident' about the two points that this object was a booster for Chang'e 5 T1.