'Luna-25 Crashed Because...' Russian Space Agency Director Reveals Why Moon Mission Failed This Time

New Delhi: Russia’s first moon mission ‘Luna-25’ in the nearly 50 years failed on August 20 to make a soft landing on the dark side of the Moon. It crashed onto the Moon’s surface after losing control due to ‘technical glitch’.

Luna-25 was also aiming to land near the south pole similarly to ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3.

Now, Yury Borisov, the Director General of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, explained why Luna-25 failed to make a soft landing on the Moon’s surface. He said that engines didn’t shut down at the proper time, resulting in an uncontrolled descent of the lander onto the moon’s surface.

The spacecraft was in contact with Roscosmos up until 2:57 p.m. local time on Saturday, when contact was lost. The spacecraft then entered an open lunar orbit and eventually crashed.

What’s the main reason of this failure?

Borisov attributed the failure to the interruption of Russia’s lunar program for nearly 50 years. Russia (erstwhile Soviet) sent its last spacecraft to the Moon in 1976. “The negative experience of interrupting the lunar program for almost 50 years is the main reason for the failures," said Borisov. 

Russia launched ‘Luna-25’ on August 10 as it had the powerful rocket to send the spacecraft directly to the Moon’s orbit.

It lost contact during the last maneuvere to the Russia’s space station and entered in a free orbit of the Moon before crashing into it.

Chandrayaan-3’s lander ‘Vikram’ will attempt to make a soft landing near the south pole on August 23, around 5:20 pm IST. It is scheduled to land on the Moon around 6:02 pm.