The Russian Lunar Mission: Luna-25 (Image: wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons)

The Luna-25, Russia”s first moon mission in nearly half a century has failed after the spacecraft made a crash landing on the lunar surface on Sunday.

It was Russia”s first lunar mission since the Soviet Union”s Luna-24. Luna-24 returned with samples from the moon in 1976.

Luna 25

• Luna 25 or the Luna-Glob-Lander is a lunar lander mission, launched by Russia.
• It was targeted to the South polar region of the Moon.
• Primary scientific objectives of the mission:
  1. To study composition of the polar regolith
  2. To study the plasma and dust components of the lunar polar exosphere
• It was launched on 10 August 2023 from Vostochny Cosmodrome, the Russian spaceport.
• The lander entered the moon”s orbit on 16 August. It was about to attempt a soft landing on Monday 21 August.

“An “abnormal situation” occurred as mission control tried to move the craft into a pre-landing orbit at 11:10 GMT on Saturday. It lost communication with the craft at 11:57 GMT on Saturday”, said the Russian state space corporation Roskosmos.

What does the failure cause Russia?

• It underscores the decline of Russia”s space power since the glory days of Cold War competition. It was Moscow which first launched a satellite to orbit the Earth – Sputnik 1, in 1957 – and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man to travel into space in 1961.
• This is the first moon mission by Russia after Luna-24 in 1976.
• Over the past three decades, Russia has considered various moon missions which were delayed or shelved amid the chaos of the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and the ensuing economic and political turmoil.
• The current failure underscores, “the pressure on Russia”s $2 trillion economy, which has so far withstood what the West casts as the most stringent sanctions ever imposed. The West says the sanctions have weakened Russia”s economy, particularly the high-technology parts of it which often rely on imports. President Vladimir Putin says Russia”s economy is showing remarkable strength”, reported the Reuters.