Luna-25 from Russia collides with the moon

A technical issue caused the lunar landing mission’s Luna-25 spacecraft to crash onto the moon’s surface, according to Russian space agency Roscosmos on Sunday.

In a statement, the agency said that “the apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon.”

Roscosmos reported losing touch with the spacecraft on Saturday after it encountered issues while preparing for its pre-landing orbit and reported a “abnormal situation” that its experts were investigating.

The agency said in a Telegram message that “during the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters.”

On Monday, the spacecraft was supposed to touch down on the south pole of the moon. Scientists are particularly interested in the lunar south pole because they think the continuously shadowed polar craters may have frozen water in the rocks that future explorers may use to make air and rocket fuel.

The Indian spacecraft, which was launched on July 14, was behind the Russian lunar lander in the race to touch down on Earth’s satellite. Between August 21 and 23, both were supposed to arrive at the moon.

Only the Soviet Union, the United States, and China have accomplished successful lunar landings, but not near the south pole of the moon. Russia and India have been competing to be the first nations to set foot there.

Indian spacecraft smashed into the moon’s surface during an earlier attempt to land near the moon’s south pole in 2019.

By demonstrating that Russia “is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon,” Roscosmos said it would “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface.”

Since Moscow started intervening in Ukraine, sanctions have been placed on Russia, making it more difficult for it to obtain Western technology, which has an influence on its space program.

The Luna-25 was designed to carry a tiny lunar rover at first, but experts believed the plan was scrapped in order to make the vehicle lighter and more dependable.

On August 10, the Luna-25 was launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East of Russia.

Vladimir Putin’s favourite project, the spaceport, is essential to his attempts to turn Russia into a space powerhouse.

Russia’s first launch since 1976, when it was a member of the Soviet Union, occurred earlier this month.