Russia’s Luna-25 Spacecraft Crashes Into Moon

Author: Editors Desk Source: WSJ:

August 20, 2023 at 07:53

A rocket carrying Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft launched earlier this month. PHOTO: SERGEI SAVOSTYANOV/TASS/ZUMA PRESS

Russia has been in a race with India to become the first country to land a rover on the moon’s unexplored south pole.

Russia’s first mission to the moon in nearly 50 years ended in a disaster as its unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft crashed while attempting to land on the unexplored south pole, Russian authorities said Sunday.

Russia was racing with India to become the first nation to land a rover on the area of the moon that scientists believe could hold water and other elements that could support a human settlement in the future.

The Luna-25 probe was launched on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket on Aug. 11 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East and was supposed to touch down on Aug. 21.

Western experts speculated that the international sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine might have cut off its space program from access to key technologies. A successful operation could have shown that the Kremlin still has technological prowess.

On Saturday, Russia’s state news agency TASS had reported that the Luna-25 faced an “abnormal situation” during a maneuver to enter a pre-landing orbit and lost contact with its handlers at about 2:57 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday.

“The Luna-25 spacecraft switched to an off-design orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon,” Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, told TASS.