Russia's Luna-25 Slams Into Moon

Russia’s first mission to the moon in nearly 50 years ended in a disaster as its unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft crashed while attempting to land on the unexplored south pole, Moscow confirmed, Bojan Pancevski reported for the Wall Street Journal.

Photo Insert: The Luna-25 probe was launched on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket on Aug. 11 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East and was supposed to touch down on Aug. 21.

Russia was racing with India to become the first nation to land a rover on the area of the moon that scientists believe could hold water and other elements needed to support a human settlement in the future.

The Luna-25 probe was launched on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket on Aug. 11 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East and was supposed to touch down on Aug. 21, the Associated Press (AP), Reuters and BBC News also reported.

Western experts speculated that the international sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine might have cut off its space program from access to key technologies.

A successful operation could have shown that the Kremlin still has technological prowess.

On Saturday, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported that the Luna-25 faced an “abnormal situation” during a maneuver to enter a pre-landing orbit and lost contact with its handlers at about 2:57 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday.

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