“Russia’s first lunar mission in decades has ended in failure with its Luna 25 spacecraft crashing into the moon’s surface,” reports CNN:
The incident, a blow to Russia’s space ambitions, happened after communication with the robotic spacecraft was interrupted, a blow to Russia’s space ambitions. Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said it lost touch with Luna 25 on Saturday around 2:57 p.m. Moscow time… According to a “preliminary analysis,” Luna-25 “switched to an off-design orbit” before the collision, Roscosmos said. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash… The news comes a day after the spacecraft reported an “emergency situation” as it was trying to enter a pre-landing orbit, according to Roscosmos…
The spacecraft was meant to complete Russia’s first lunar landing mission in 47 years. The country’s last lunar lander, Luna 24, landed on the surface of the moon on August 18, 1976… Luna 25 was seen as a proving ground for future robotic lunar exploration missions by Roscosmos. Several future Luna spacecraft were slated to make use of the same design. If it had been successful, Luna 25 would have marked a huge stride for the country’s civil space program — which some experts say has faced issues for decades — and demonstrate that it could still perform in high-profile, high-stakes missions. “They were having a lot of problems with quality control, corruption, with funding,” said Victoria Samson, the Washington office director for Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the peaceful exploration of outer space, during an interview Friday.
News that Russia experienced issues with its spacecraft elicited sympathy that reverberated throughout the space community. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s former head of science, said in a social media post that no one in the industry “wishes bad onto other explorers… We are reminded that landing on any celestial object is anything but easy & straightforward,” he said,
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam and TheNameOfNick for sharing the news.
