Roscosmos reported the Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon on August 19 after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit. The unmanned robotic spacecraft was aiming to be the first ever to land on the south pole of the moon where there is a lot of water ice and precious elements.
Roscosmos said “The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon.”
On August 19, in accordance with the flight program of the Luna-25 spacecraft, an impulse was provided for the formation of its pre-landing elliptical orbit.
At about 14:57 Moscow time, communication with the Luna-25 spacecraft was interrupted.
The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and get into contact with it did not produce any results.
According to the results of the preliminary analysis, due to the deviation of the actual parameters of the impulse from the calculated ones, the device switched to an off-design orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface.
A specially formed interdepartmental commission will deal with the issues of clarifying the reasons for the loss of the Moon.
The Russian Luna-25 and anIndian spacecraft were launched on July 14 and were racing to be the first to reach the south pole. Both were expected to reach the moon between Aug. 21 and 23. The lunar mission was Russia’s first lunar mission since 1976, when it was the Soviet Union.
Only three countries have successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
A previous Indian attempt to land at the south pole in 2019 ended when the spacecraft crashed into the moon’s surface. An Israeli mission also crashed into the moon.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Russian Space Agency: “Don’t Worry We Know How To Crash”
Generally I can agree with your sentiment, but at this time there’s a strong element of justification in ‘bashing’ Russia. Most of these Russian rockets are these days aimed at Ukrainian civilians. So the failure of Putin’s propaganda at this time is appropriate.
Generally I can agree with your sentiment, but at this time there’s a strong element of justification in ‘bashing’ Russia. Most of these Russian rockets are these days aimed at Ukrainian civilians. So the failure of Putin’s propaganda at this time is appropriate.
People involved should stay away from windows and tall buildings for awhile.
My heart aches for poor Rogozin. Such a nice fellow. 😁
Not surprising, Russia is a very weak player in space tech, Soviet era tech is really showing its age, and anything new goes way over budget & takes way longer to deploy…if ever (Orel).
Lithobreaking.
Wait, wouldn’t SpaceX spin this as moving fast and breaking things?
Still, it sucks. Kinda pathetic.
It’s like 40 years since the last Russian probe. Hardly moving fast.
I’m normally upset about things like this. Not this time!
Better than landing on a hospital or theatre in Ukraine like all the other airborne Russian junk.