New Delhi: Russia’s lunar mission spacecraft, Luna-25, crashed into the Moon’s surface on Sunday, leaving the race to first land at the unchartered south pole, which the scientists believe contains important reserves of frozen water and precious elements.
Luna-25, according to Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, spun into an uncontrolled orbit before crashing into the Moon’s surface. The Russian probe spacecraft was supposed to land on the south pole of the Moon on Monday, August 21.
Luna-25 is 1st Russian lunar mission
The lunar mission was Russia’s first since 1976, when it was part of the Soviet Union. Only three governments have managed successful Moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
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According to the Russian space agency. the lunar probe was to get into the landing orbit after a thrust for descend but due to deviation in its path, it entered into an undesignated orbit. “During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the carrying out of the manoeuvre within the specified conditions….At about 2:57 pm Decree time, the connection with the Luna-25 automatic lunar probe was lost,” Roscosmos said, adding that all efforts to connect with the lunar probe failed.
Luna-25 entered undesignated orbit
“Preliminary analysis results suggest that a deviation between the actual and calculated parameters of the propulsion maneuver led the Luna-25 spacecraft to enter an undesignated orbit and it ceased to exist following a collision with the surface of the Moon,” the agency said.
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The cause of the Russian lunar probe is being determined, the space agency said.
Why the South Pole of Moon is so important?
The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain frozen water in the rocks that future explorers could transform into air and rocket fuel.
Chandrayaan-3 to attempt soft-landing on Aug 23
India’s Chandrayaan-3 will also be attempting a landing on the south pole on August 23-24, paving the way for it to be the first to land on an unchartered territory of the Moon. A previous attempt by India, Chandrayaan-2, to land at the south pole in 2019 ended when the spacecraft crashed into the Moon’s surface.
