Russia’s moon mission, Luna-25 has ended as a failure after its space agency Roscosmos announced that the spacecraft went out of control and ultimately crashed on the Moon’s surface. The space agency stated that the apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.
Through its official Telegram channel, Roscosmos State Space Corporation said, “On August 19, in accordance with the Luna-25 flight programme, an impulse was provided to form its pre-landing elliptical orbit. At about 14:57 Moscow time, communication with the Luna-25 apparatus was interrupted. The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and get in contact with it did not produce any results.”
BREAKING: Russia’s #Luna25 moon lander has crashed on the lunar surface. Official statement confirms. A sad day for science & the Roscosmos team, very much like it was for ISRO/Chandrayaan-2 in 2019. Now all eyes on India’s Vikram, scheduled to land on Aug 23 @ 5.45pm. pic.twitter.com/RdMHfsYd7x
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) August 20, 2023
The agency has added that it will form a special interdepartmental commission to deal with the issues and it will clarify the reasons for the loss of its moon mission.
The preliminary analysis of the Luna 25 mission suggested that a deviation between the actual and calculated parameters of the propulsion manoeuvre led to the spacecraft transitioning into an unintended orbit. This unfortunately resulted in its collision with the lunar surface and subsequent loss.
This was Russia’s first moon mission after a long gap of 47 years. Earlier, Roscosmos had stated that an “abnormal situation” occurred as mission control tried to manoeuvre the spacecraft into a pre-landing orbit at 11:10 GMT on Saturday, ahead of a planned touchdown slated for Monday, (21 August).
In a brief statement, Roscosmos said, “During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the manoeuvre to be performed with the specified parameters.”
After that, Russian media had expressed concerns that their lunar spacecraft might be lost which eventually turned out to be true.
According to Russian space officials, Luna-25 was slated to execute a soft landing on the south pole of the moon on the 21st of August. In a friendly rivalry, it was racing against India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft which is also scheduled to land on the moon’s south pole this week. However, apart from this friendly rivalry between Chandrayaan-3 and Luna-25, the Russian moon mission was aimed at challenging the hegemony of China and the United States. Russia also wanted to portray itself as a space superpower as it once had been in the erstwhile Soviet era.
The last Russian moon mission was the Luna-24 and it was attempted way back in 1976 when Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Kremlin.
In its heydays, during the Cold War competition, Moscow was the first to launch a satellite to orbit the Earth – Sputnik 1, in 1957. Subsequently, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space in 1961. But now, its attempt to revive its space superpower image has suffered a dent after the failure of its moon mission, Luna 25.
Chandrayaan-3 to attempt a soft landing on Moon’s surface on 23rd August
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
— ISRO (@isro) August 20, 2023
🇮🇳Chandrayaan-3 is set to land on the moon 🌖on August 23, 2023, around 18:04 Hrs. IST.
Thanks for the wishes and positivity!
Let’s continue experiencing the journey together
as the action unfolds LIVE at:
ISRO Website https://t.co/osrHMk7MZL
YouTube… pic.twitter.com/zyu1sdVpoE
Meanwhile, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) took to X to announce that Chandrayaan-3 will attempt a soft landing on the lunar surface on the evening of 23rd August. As per the planned schedule, the lander will have a feather-like touchdown on the moon’s surface at around 6:04 PM on Wednesday. Once accomplished, India will become the first country to have successfully demonstrated a soft landing on the moon’s south pole.
