Russia’s first space mission to the moon in 5 decades has failed.
The Luna 25 spacecraft crashes into the lunar surface after a technical glitch.
Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has confirmed that Luna 25 has crashed into the lunar surface after losing contact.
According to a statement issued by the agency, Luna 25 deviated from the planned path before hitting the moon and went into an orbit where it was not planned to be sent.
Russian moon mission near failure due to ‘unusual conditions’
The Russian agency said that a special commission will investigate to find out the reasons for the destruction of Luna 25.
The spacecraft was supposed to land on the South Pole of the Moon on August 21, but on August 19, the Russian Space Agency lost contact with it.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos was informed on August 19 that the spacecraft had encountered a problem while attempting to enter the pre-landing orbit and experts were analyzing the situation.
Due to this problem, the spacecraft failed to enter the pre-landing orbit.
It was not clear from Roscosmos why Luna 25 encountered problems during its attempt to enter the pre-landing orbit.
The last time Russia sent the Luna 24 mission to the moon was in 1976, but it was not attempted again for nearly five decades.
It should be noted that there was a competition between India and Russia to land the first mission to the south pole of the Moon, in which the Russian spacecraft faced failure.
For the first time in nearly 5 decades, a Russian spacecraft entered lunar orbit
India’s Chandrayaan 3 mission will attempt to land on the lunar surface on August 23.
Russia plans to send more missions to the Moon in the near future, but it is unclear what impact the Luna 25 failure might have on the program.
Note that Luna 25 was launched on August 11 and entered lunar orbit on August 16.