Russia‘s first moon mission in 47 years ends in a crash. Russian space agency Roscosmos reported on Sunday that the Luna-25, the country’s first Moon mission in nearly 50 years, fell on the Moon as a result of an accident during pre-landing preparations.
Roscosmos reported that communication with Luna-25 was lost around 2:57 PM (1157 GMT) on Saturday.
The lander “has ceased to exist following a collision with the Moon’s surface,” according to preliminary assessments.
Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years ends in a crash.
“Today, in accordance with the flight program of the Luna-25 probe, at 2:10pm. Moscow time, a command was issued to the probe to enter the pre-landing orbit,” the Russian space agency said.
Also read: Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian drone attacks Moscow building
“During the operation, an emergency occurred on the space probe that did not allow it to perform the maneuver in accordance with the required parameters,” Roscosmos said.
According to the Russian media outlet TASS, command and control team experts began to evaluate the issue after receiving data from Luna-25, which made history on August 16 by becoming the first Russian spacecraft to orbit the moon since 1976.
As part of a race between superpowers to study the region of the moon that scientists believe may have frozen water and rare components that could support life, the Russian probe is planned to arrive on the south pole of the moon on Monday.
Roskosmos had already announced that it had obtained and was analyzing the initial Luna-25 mission results.
The agency also published pictures of the Zeeman crater on the moon that were captured by the spacecraft. It claimed that the crater, which has a circumference of 190 km (118 miles) and a depth of 8 km (five miles), is the third-deepest in the southern hemisphere of the moon.
According to Roskosmos, the data it has so far received has revealed information about the chemical components of lunar soil and will make it easier for instruments intended to examine the moon’s near-surface to operate.
It continued by saying that its tools had recorded “the event of a micrometeorite impact.”
It will operate for a year on the south pole, where researchers from NASA and other space agencies have recently found evidence of frozen water in the craters. It will be around the size of a compact vehicle.
Major space powers should consider the effects of the presence of water since it may permit longer human stays on the moon and lunar resource exploitation.
