A massive blow for the Russian space program. The Luna-25 probe, the first spacecraft to be launched by Russia to the Moon since 1976, crashed on the surface of our natural satellite following damage which occurred on Saturday afternoon during a preliminary maneuver to its moon landing, announced the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
After “an impulse given to form its elliptical pre-moon landing orbit”, “around 2:57 p.m., communication with Luna-25 was interrupted” on Saturday, Roscosmos explained in a statement on Sunday. “The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and make contact with it did not yield any results,” the space agency lamented. Before adding: “According to the preliminary results” of the investigation, the device “ceased to exist following a collision with the lunar surface”.
“An interministerial commission” will investigate
The failure comes just as Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to continue the Russian space program despite funding problems, corruption scandals and Russian isolation due to the conflict in Ukraine.
“An interministerial commission” will be responsible for understanding “the reasons” for the incident which caused “the loss” of Luna-25, the Russian space agency also announced, which did not give possible causes for the problem. technique occurred. The Luna-25 mission, intended to give new impetus to the Russian space sector, was announced as “risky” by the very admission of the boss of Roscosmos, Yuri Borissov.
Faced with Vladimir Putin last June, he declared: “The probability of success of such missions is estimated at around 70%”. Luna-25 had been successfully placed in lunar orbit on Wednesday, after taking off on the night of August 10 to 11 from the Russian Far East. His moon landing was scheduled for Monday.