Russian probe Luna 25 crashed on the Moon

This is a huge disappointment for Russia. The Luna 25 probe, which was to attempt to land on our satellite on Monday, crashed on its surface over the weekend. It had been almost fifty years, and the success of Luna 24 in 1976, that the country (the USSR at the time) had not undertaken a mission to the Moon. The ambition of this new attempt was precisely to try to reconnect with this prestigious past. The least we can say is that the bet has failed.

Informed observers know it well: nothing is ever easy in space. Americans like to repeat it before almost every mission: “ Space is hard. » Nobody would have been wildly surprised by a failure during the actual landing attempt. This indeed requires particularly precise guidance and braking.

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In this regard, it is China’s flawless performance, with three perfectly successful moon landings in three attempts (in 2013, 2018 and 2020, during the Chang’e 3, 4 and 5 missions), which was surprising. As for an explosion on takeoff (which took place without incident on the night of August 10 to 11 from the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Russian Far East), it happens, unfortunately. Launching a rocket always carries an inherent risk.

What is more surprising, and not necessarily reassuring, is to see Russia lose its probe during an orbital maneuver that is altogether quite banal. Saturday afternoon, Roscosmos announced that it had launched a few hours earlier, at 1:10 p.m. French time, a transfer maneuver to the pre-moon landing orbit.

In short, the engineers turn on the engines again to stretch the orbit and put themselves on a trajectory compatible with an arrival in the planned landing zone, in this case the South Pole. “ During the operation, an emergency situation arose on board the automated vessel, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the correct parameters. »explained the space agency Roscosmos on its Telegram channel.

On Sunday morning, the Russian space agency simply explained that “ communication with Luna 25 » had been “ interrupted » Saturday around 1:57 p.m. “ The measures taken on the 19th and 20th august to search for the device and get in touch with it did not yield any results »she continues. “ The aircraft entered an unpredictable orbit (sic) and ceased to exist due to a collision with the surface of the Moon (re-sic). »

But what exactly happened? For the moment, it is difficult to be categorical. Quoting the Telegram channel Yura Prosti, Russian space program journalist Anatoly Zak (RussianSpaceWeb) raises the possibility of a “ computer miscalculation » having led to the motors firing too long (one and a half times too long, precisely). “ The flight control system, which had undergone numerous fixes, is a vulnerable area (of the program) »hot analysis Anatoly Zak.

The exact nature of the “ emergency situation » mentioned by Roscosmos is not very clear. Moreover, the loss of communication was a priori expected, since the communication antennas placed on Russian territory no longer “saw” the probe at this time. The Russian space agency simply announced that“ an interministerial commission » would be responsible for investigating the causes of this failure.

“ Was it a programming error, human error, or was there a faulty component? ? »asks Isabelle Sourbès-Verger, geographer, director of research at the CNRS and specialist in space policies (1). “ In the first case, it’s a shame, but it’s not too serious. If it’s a hardware issue, it’s more annoying. They fall back on their old quality control problems. And since they no longer have access to many foreign components since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, this is not necessarily easy to correct. »

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In any case, this failure also highlights the real underlying problem: that of the chronic underfunding of Russian space. “ When you work with little money, and you have lost the experience you had, there is no miracle »analyzes Isabelle Sourbès-Verger. “ Luna’s Success 25 could have marked the beginning of a resurrection, but in any case it would have required additional funding. »

The new Luna program has at least two other missions: Luna 26, an orbiter, and Luna 27, a new lander responsible for exploring the subsoil using a drill. The launches, currently scheduled for 2024 and 2025, could be postponed depending on the results of Russian investigations.

This lunar failure could also turn to humiliation in the coming days. Launched in July, the Indian probe Chandrayaan 3 is indeed in orbit and will attempt to land on Wednesday at the South Pole. India would then become the fourth power, after the United States, the USSR and China, to achieve this feat.

(1) To appear on the 24th August, his last work : “ Geopolitics of the space world », Editions Eyrolles.