The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) lacked fuel to maintain a long-term lunar orbit or continue science operations and was intentionally sent into the lunar surface last week.
The spacecraft's orbit naturally decayed following the mission's final low-altitude science phase, NASA said.
During impact, engineers believe the LADEE spacecraft, the size of a vending machine, broke apart, with most of the spacecraft's material heating up several hundred degrees - or even vaporising - at the surface.
"At the time of impact, LADEE was travelling at a speed of 3,600 miles per hour (5794 km/hr) - about three times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet," said Rick Elphic, LADEE project scientist at Ames.
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"There's nothing gentle about impact at these speeds - it's just a question of whether LADEE made a localised craterlet on a hillside or scattered debris across a flat area. It will be interesting to see what kind of feature LADEE has created," said Elphic.
In early April, the spacecraft was commanded to carry out manoeuvres that would lower its closest approach to the lunar surface.
On April 11, LADEE performed a final manoeuvre to ensure a trajectory that caused the spacecraft to impact the far side of the Moon, which is not in view of Earth or near any previous lunar mission landings.
LADEE also survived the total lunar eclipse on April 14 to 15. This demonstrated the spacecraft's ability to endure low temperatures and a drain on batteries as it, and the moon, passed through Earth's deep shadow.
Launched in September 2013 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, LADEE began orbiting the Moon October 6 and gathering science data November 10.
LADEE also hosted NASA's first dedicated system for two-way communication using laser instead of radio waves.
The Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) made history using a pulsed laser beam to transmit data over the 384,633km from the Moon to the Earth at a record-breaking download rate of 622 megabits-per-second (Mbps).