The Luna-25 lunar landing spacecraft lifts off from Vostochny in Russia’s far eastern Amur region on August 11, 2023. ROSCOSMOS / REUTERS
“An emergencywas detected on Saturday during a pre-landing maneuver by the Russian Luna-25 probe, Russian space agency Roscosmos said, saying “currently analyzing the situation“. “At 2:10 p.m., a pulse was emitted to transfer the probe to the pre-moon landing orbit“, first explained the agency in a press release. “During the operation, an emergency situation arose on board the automatic (lunar) station, which did not allow to perform the maneuver with the specified parameters“, she added.
The first Russian lunar probe launched in nearly 50 years, Luna-25, was successfully placed in lunar orbit on Wednesday, after taking off on the night of August 10 to 11 from the Russian Far East.
A “risky” project
In its press release, Roscosmos did not indicate on Saturday whether this incident would delay the lunar landing of the probe scheduled for Monday north of the Bogouslavsky crater, on the lunar South Pole. She did not give more details on the circumstances of this technical problem. Last June, Roscosmos boss Yuri Borissov admitted to President Vladimir Putin that the Luna-25 mission was “risky“. “The probability of success of such missions is estimated at around 70%.“, he said about the probe of nearly 800 kilos.
The mission is intended to give new impetus to the Russian space sector, which has been struggling for years due to funding problems and corruption scandals, and now isolated due to the conflict in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has promised to continue the Russian space program despite the difficulties of the sector, taking as an example the sending by the USSR of the first man in space in 1961.