Luna 25 crash highlights: Propulsion manoeuvre error caused craft collision with Moon

In what appears to be a setback to Russia's moon mission, the Luna-25 spacecraft ran into unspecified trouble while trying to enter a pre-landing orbit on Saturday. The Luna-25, the first Russian lunar lander in nearly 50 years, was due to enter the pre-landing orbit around the same time as the Chandrayaan-3 lander module but the manoeuvre was unsuccessful. Read

Russia's Luna-25 faces glitch during pre-moon landing manoeuvre. Read

Russia's first moon mission since the Soviet era ended in failure as its Luna-25 spacecraft lost control and collided with the moon. See Pics

Russia's first lunar mission in nearly five decades, crashed into Moon on Sunday, leaving India's Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module the only spacecraft in the race to touch down on the lunar surface. It was expected to make history by making a soft landing on Monday or Tuesday, just days before the touchdown of India's Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module. Meanwhile, the Indian space agency on Sunday said it has successfully reduced the orbit of the Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module, and it is now expected to touch down on the surface of the Moon at 1804 hours on August 23.

China is pursuing plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030 and build a base there, AFP reported.

The world's second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space programme in a push to catch up with the United States and Russia.

China was the third country to place humans in orbit in 2003 and its Tiangong rocket is the crown jewel of its space programme, which has also landed rovers on Mars and the Moon.

The unmanned Chang'e-4 rocket landed on the far side of the Moon in 2019. Another robot mission to the near side raised the Chinese flag there in 2020.

That Moon landing brought rock and soil samples back to Earth, the first time that has been done in more than four decades.

Roscosmos boss Yuri Borisov had said the venture would be "risky", telling President Vladimir Putin in June that the probability of it succeeding was “around 70 per cent”, AFP reported.

Russia's first moon mission in 47 years has encountered failure, as its Luna-25 spacecraft veered off course and collided with the moon. This mishap occurred due to complications during the pre-landing orbit setup, highlighting the decline of the once-potent space program in the post-Soviet era.

Luna 25 mission aimed to study the composition of the lunar polar regolith (surface material) and the plasma and dust components of the lunar polar exosphere.

Although the south pole of the Moon has challenging terrain for landing, it is a highly valued target because scientists believe it could contain substantial amounts of ice, potentially useful for extracting fuel, oxygen, and even drinking water.

Roscosmos boss Yuri Borisov had said the venture would be "risky", telling President Vladimir Putin in June that the probability of it succeeding was “around 70 percent”, AFP reported.

Only three countries have managed successful soft moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China, but not on the moon's south pole. India and Russia were racing to be the first countries to land there.

A previous Indian attempt to land at the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s surface.

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An "emergency" was detected on Saturday during a manoeuvre by Russia's Luna-25 probe prior to its Moon landing, Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

"Thrust was released to transfer the probe onto the pre-landing orbit," Roscosmos said in a statement.

"During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the carrying out of the manoeuvre within the specified conditions," it added.

Luna 25 news

On August 11, the Russian space agency launched its Luna 25 mission to the moon's south pole, rekindling the spirit of lunar exploration from the Soviet Union era. The mission was set to softly land on the Moon by August 21, notably preceding India's Chandrayaan 3 lunar mission.

Luna 25's objectives included examining the lunar polar surface material (regolith) composition and studying the particles in the lunar polar exosphere.

“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,” Roscosmos State Space Corporation said on its official Telegram channel.

The space agency added that 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, Roscosmos said.