Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into the moon: How and why it happened
Russia's first lunar mission in nearly five decades, Luna-25, crashed into Moon a day after it had spun into uncontrolled orbit, the country's space agency said on Sunday. The pilotless spacecraft was aiming to be the first ever to land on the south pole of the moon, an area where scientists believe there could be important reserves of frozen water and precious elements.
It had been expected to land on Monday. However, Roscosmos said it lost contact with the Luna-25 on Saturday after the spacecraft ran into difficulties and reported an «abnormal situation ».
«The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon,» read a statement from the agency. The Luna-25 was in a race with India's Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module the only spacecraft in the race to touch down on the lunar surface. What caused the disaster? According to the Russian space agency, the lunar probe was to get into the landing orbit after a thrust for descend but due to deviation in its path, it entered into an undesignated orbit.
«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….At about 2:57 pm Decree time, the connection with the Luna-25 automatic lunar probe was lost,» Roscosmos said, adding that all efforts to connect with the lunar probe failed. «Preliminary analysis results suggest that a deviation between the actual and calculated parameters of the propulsion maneuver led the Luna-25 spacecraft to enter an undesignated orbit and it ceased to exist following a collision with the surface of the Moon,» the agency added.
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