Aug 21 – Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, claimed on Sunday that its Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon after experiencing “unspecified trouble.”
The spacecraft encountered unspecified faults and “spun into an uncontrolled orbit” while entering a pre-landing orbit, according to Mirror.
Earlier, the spacecraft faced a “abnormal situation” as it prepared to move to the moon’s pre-landing orbit.
“During the operation, an emergency occurred on the space probe that did not allow it to perform the manoeuvre in accordance with the required parameters,” Roscosmos said in a statement on Saturday.
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On Wednesday, the Luna-25 entered lunar orbit.
On August 11, Luna-25 launched aboard a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from Russia’s Vostochny launch complex at 2.10 a.m. Moscow time (4.40 a.m. IST), according to the TASS news agency.
During the former Soviet Union time, Russia’s last lunar mission, Luna-24, was launched in 1976.
Russia hoped to be the first country to land softly on the lunar south pole with Luna-25.
Furthermore, Luna-25 was supposed to land around the same time and in the same location as India’s Chandrayaan 3 mission, which launched on July 14 and arrived in lunar orbit on August 6.
According to media sources, Roscosmos stated that the Luna-25 will not interfere with Chandrayaan-3 because the two missions will land in distinct areas. It went on to say that there was enough room on the Moon for everyone.
Meanwhile, NASA wants to create one or more bases near the moon’s south pole by the end of the 2020s under its Artemis programme.
Luna-25 is scheduled to enter lunar orbit on August 16 and land on August 21.
