Elon Musk’s spaceX is not responsible for an out of control rocket expected to collide with the moon on March 4. The rogue rocket was wrongly identified as a SpaceX Falcon rocket stage and, instead, is likely from a past Chinese lunar mission, according to NASA.

The object now on target to hit the moon was first made public by an independent researcher; Bill Gray who is focused on orbital dynamics and the developer of astronomical software.

He identified it in 2015 as the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon rocket, launched by Elon Musk’s company, which was used to launch the US Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR.

The object, initially called WE0913A by asteroid spotters, had gone past the moon two days after DSCOVR’s launch, he said.

“I and others came to accept the identification with the second stage as correct. The object had about the brightness we would expect, and had showed up at the expected time and moving in a reasonable orbit,” Mr Gray said on his website.

His assessment was widely accepted by other space experts and NASA, which said it was monitoring the rocket’s trajectory.

Over the weekend, however, Mr Gray said he had gotten the object’s origins wrong after communicating with Jon Giorgini of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which doesn’t track space junk but does keep careful track of a lot of active spacecraft, including DSCOVR.

“Jon pointed out that JPL’s Horizons system showed that the DSCOVR spacecraft’s trajectory did not go particularly close to the moon.
“It would be a little strange if the second stage went right past the moon, while DSCOVR was in another part of the sky. There’s always some separation, but this was suspiciously large,” Mr Gray said.
“Analysis led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies indicates the object expected to impact the far side of the Moon March 4 is likely the Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 booster launched in 2014,” according to a NASA statement.
“It is not a SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage from a mission in 2015 as previously reported. This update results from analysis of the object’s orbits in the 2016 – 2017 timeframe.”

Mr Gray said he subsequently reviewed his data and has now landed on a different explanation: He said the object was the third stage of the Chinese Long March 3C rocket used to launch its lunar orbiter in 2014.
The rocket stage is expected to hit the moon at 7:26 am ET on March 4.
However, the impact will be on the far side of the moon and not visible from Earth.
The rocket will likely disintegrate on impact and create a crater about 10 to 20 metres across.