Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into the Moon’s surface hours before scheduled landing

Russia’s Luna-25 space craft, which was attempting to land on the Moon’s surface, has crashed into the lunar surface after it failed to be placed in a controlled orbit.

Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos said that the spacecraft spun into uncontrolled orbit before crashing.

Roscosmos earlier said an “abnormal situation” had occurred as mission control tried to move the craft into a pre-landing orbit on Saturday.

A spokesperson for Russian space agency Roscosmos said it lost control of Luna-25 during its pre-landing orbit. “The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.”

Luna-25 was supposed to execute a soft landing on the south pole of the Moon on August 21, according to reports in Russian media. The lunar south pole is of interest to scientists, who believe the polar craters might contain traces of water.

Russia’s Luna-25 Moon mission

The Luna-25 was the culmination of Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years. The country’s previous attempt at a mission to Earth’s satellite was with Luna-24 in 1976.

Russia has been a space-power since the 1950s as it was the first country to successfully launch a satellite to orbit the Earth, the Sputnik 1, in 1957. Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space in 1961.

However, it was the US that put the first man on the Moon with the landing of the NASA’s Apollo 11 spacecraft in 1969.

More recently, Russia was in a race against India, whose space research organisation – ISRO launched the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft which is scheduled to land on the lunar surface just days apart from Roskosmos’ Luna-25.

ISRO, in its latest update, said Chandrayaan-3 is set to land on the Moon on August 23, around 18:04 pm local time.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:

??Chandrayaan-3 is set to land on the moon ?on August 23, 2023, around 18:04 Hrs. IST.

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— ISRO (@isro) August 20, 2023

India’s attempt at successfully landing a spacecraft on the Moon is to enter the select club of countries who have landed on the lunar surface. The US, Russia, and China are the only countries to have done so, till date.