Almost 50 years after Moscow’s last successful lunar mission, the Luna-25 probe crashed on the moon, a reminder of the troubles of Russia’s industry, which is plagued by corruption and a lack of innovation and partnerships and finds itself in the international space race.
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• Also read: The first Russian lunar probe on its way to the moon in almost 50 years
The Luna-25 spacecraft, the first to take Russia to the moon since 1976, crashed to the lunar soil after an incident on Saturday during a pre-landing maneuver, the Russian space agency said on Sunday.
After “an impulse to form its elliptical orbit prior to the lunar landing” on Saturday, “about 2:57 p.m. (11:57 GMT) communications with Luna-25 were lost,” Roscosmos said in a press release.
“The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for and contact the device were unsuccessful,” the space agency said.
Photo: AFP
Before adding, “According to the preliminary results” of the investigation, the device “ceased to exist after colliding with the lunar surface.”
The failure comes just as Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue Russia’s space program despite funding problems, corruption scandals and Russia’s isolation from the conflict in Ukraine.
“An inter-ministerial commission” will be responsible for clarifying “the reasons” for the incident that led to the “loss” of Luna-25, Roskosmos also said, but did not name any possible causes for the technical problem that had arisen.
AFP
On Saturday, the wording of Roscosmos’ statement on the issue that had arisen left little room for doubt.
“An emergency situation arose on board the automatic (lunar) station, which did not allow the maneuver to be carried out with the specified parameters,” the Russian space agency said.
Roscosmos had therefore not provided any further details on the circumstances of the incident, suggesting that the worst could be feared for the Luna-25, a device weighing almost 800 kilograms.
The Luna 25 mission, designed to give a boost to Russia’s space sector, has already been described as “risky” by the admission of Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov.
He told Vladimir Putin last June: “The probability of success of such missions is estimated at around 70%.”
AFP
Luna-25 was successfully launched into lunar orbit on Wednesday after launching from Russia’s Far East during the night of August 10-11.
The moon landing was scheduled for Monday at the lunar south pole, which would have been a first since the machines had previously landed in the equatorial zone.
Luna-25’s original year-long mission to the Moon was to collect and analyze soil samples.
Its failure is a reminder that the difficulties of the Russian space sector have been piling up in recent years, between endemic corruption, chronic funding problems, a lack of innovation and the use of Soviet technologies.
And the aftermath of the military offensive in Ukraine only aggravated their problems.
AFP
After the launch of Luna-25 in February 2022 by Vladimir Putin, the European Space Agency (ESA) therefore declared that it would abandon cooperation with Moscow on the launch of Luna-25 and on the future missions 26 and 27.
However, the Russian president had vowed that Moscow would do whatever it took to maintain its place in space – where competition is mounting – citing as an example the USSR’s sending of the first man into space in 1961, in a complete escalation of the East . tensions in the west.
In recent years, a new race for the moon has begun, with the USA, China, India and South Korea also showing great ambitions, as well as several private companies.