Luna-25 probe, Russia's first lunar mission in decades, crashes on moon
A Russian lunar probe has crashed on the surface of the moon after an emergency situation occurred during a pre-landing manoeuvre, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.
The Luna-25 probe was launched on July 22 and was scheduled to land on the moon on August 18. However, communication with the probe was lost on August 17, and Roscosmos said on August 19 that the probe had crashed on the moon.
The cause of the crash is not yet known, but Roscosmos said that an emergency situation occurred on board the probe during a pre-landing maneuver. This caused the probe to go into an arbitrary orbit and eventually crash into the moon.
The Luna-25 probe was the first in a series of missions that Russia planned to send to the moon. The next mission, Luna-26, is scheduled to launch in 2024.
The failure of the Luna-25 mission is a setback for Russia's space program. It also marks the decline of Russia's space power compared to its heyday during the Cold War, when Moscow was the first to launch a satellite into Earth orbit in 1957 and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space in 1961.
