NASA releases images of Russia's spacecraft laying dead on the surface of the moon

NASA has revealed, or at least the space agency thinks it has found, the location where Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon.

On August 19, Roscosmos, Russia's equivalent of NASA, announced that it had lost communications with its Luna-25 spacecraft, which was scheduled to make a landing on the moon. The Russian space agency announced that the spacecraft failed to complete a critical orbital maneuver that resulted in it being thrown into an unpredictable orbit that eventually met with the surface of the moon. Russia has since acknowledged the failure of the mission and announced that it will still be continuing with future Luna missions.

Before there is another Russian space launch, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is used to capture periodic images of the surface of Earth's closest neighbor to document asteroid impacts, etc, was used to locate the Luna-25 crash site and NASA believes it has found it. Writing in a new blog post on NASA's official website, the space agency states the estimated impact location is close to a new impact crater, leading the LRO team to conclude that this impact crater is likely to be from the Luna-25 mission, rather than a natural impactor.

• Read more: Russia crashed a spacecraft into the moon and then downplays the embarrassing failure

"The new crater is about 10 meters in diameter", writes NASA

"LRO's most recent"before"image of the area was captured in June 2022 (frame No. M1410024427R); thus, the crater formed sometime after that date. Since this new crater is close to the Luna 25 estimated impact point, the LRO team concludes it is likely to be from that mission, rather than a natural impactor," added NASA