Russia's first lunar mission in nearly 50 years ends in tragedy

Russia's first mission to the moon in 47 years has ended horribly, with reports indicating that the spacecraft crashed into the surface of the closest neighbor.

2

Luna-25 spacecraft

Roscosmos, the Russian equivalent of NASA, announced on August 19 that the Lunar-25 lander experienced an orbital maneuver malfunction, sending the spacecraft into an unpredictable orbit. According to Roscosmos, which wrote in a Telegram update on August 19, communications with the spacecraft were severed, and efforts to re-establish a connection were underway on August 19/20.

However, communications were never re-established as Roscosmos wrote in an update that the failed orbital maneuver resulted in an unexpected trajectory that ended in the spacecraft colliding with the lunar surface. Luna--25 was expected to touch down near the south pole of the moon, where the lunar lander would spend approximately one Earth year exploring the surface in search for water ice.

Notably, the last moon probe from Russia was the Luna-24 mission in 1976, which landed on the moon's Sea of Crises and eventually secured a lunar sample that was transported back to Earth.

• Read more: Elon Musk responds to criticism about removing the block feature on X
• Read more: Starfield reviewer says he didn't experience one bug in the first 15 hours of gameplay
• Read more: Researchers build humanoid robot pilot designed to fly planes
• Read more: GoPro HERO12 Black to rock 27MP camera with 5.3K 60FPS 10-bit video support
• Read more: Hawaii wildfires photographed from the International Space Station
• Read more: NASA releases rare footage of helicopter flying on the surface of Mars