Luna-25, Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years, ended in disaster when the spacecraft went out of control and crashed into the lunar surface. Launched on August 10, the spacecraft was supposed to perform a maneuver that would put it in a circular orbit around the Moon’s south pole, which it planned to land on Monday. But something went wrong and the spacecraft was unable to perform the maneuver as planned.What went wrong with the Luna-25?
The Russian space agency Roscosmos publicly announced a communications failure and technical glitch as an “emergency” before confirming the Luna-25’s crash on the Moon. “An abnormal situation has occurred in the automatic station that does not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” said Roscosmos.
Roscosmos said in a statement that it lost contact with the Luna-25 shortly after the problem occurred. “The device entered an unpredictable orbit and was destroyed when it collided with the surface of the Moon,” the statement said. The agency announced the fall of Luna 25 via Telegram. In the post, Roscosmos said, “Communication with the Luna-25 spacecraft was lost at around 14:57 Moscow time [on 19 August]. The measures taken to search for and contact the device on 19 and 20 August did not yield any results.” statements were included.
Luna-25 was important to Russia
Luna-25 was part of Russia’s ambitious plan to revive the lunar exploration program and demonstrate its technological prowess in space. The spacecraft was designed to study the lunar soil and look for traces of water ice in permanently shadowed craters near the south pole. Because water ice can be converted into air and rocket fuel, it is considered a valuable resource for future human missions to the Moon.
The spacecraft also had a number of instruments, including instruments to measure the chemical composition, magnetic field, and plasma environment of the Moon’s surface. These tools actually worked until the Luna-25 crashed and sent some data to Roscosmos. In fact, some images of the Moon taken by the camera of the Luna-25 were also shared. You can find them in the link Luna-25.
The failure of the Luna-25 was a major blow to Russia’s space program, which has struggled to keep up with its rivals since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia has not attempted a lunar mission since Luna-24 in 1976. Luna-25 needed to make a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole, something that no country had done before. But India may be the first to do so. The country’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is currently in lunar orbit and aims to land at the south pole on August 23.
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