Russia’s most anticipated Moon mission fails as Luna-25 crashes on the Moon’s surface. This was Russia’s first Moon mission in 47 years which resulted in a disappointing finish. Roscosmos, the country’s state space agency informed the world about this dreadful event. Luna-25 had been prepared for a soft landing on Monday but lost its contact with the agency on Saturday around 11:57 GMT. The spacecraft advanced into an uncertain pre-landing orbit and concluded to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon. After over 47 years since the last successful Soviet lunar mission, Moscow had first described the Luna-25 mission as a crucial turning point in Russia’s space exploration history. The failure of this mission is a blow to Russian space prestige. 

The ending of this mission once again pointed out the threat involved in the soft landing of a spacecraft on the Moon. Although a successful landing has been made more than 20 times, including six times with people on board, it is obvious that the technology has not yet been perfected. Amazingly, every successful landing on the Moon occurred between 1966 and 1976, except the three Chinese missions in the last ten years.

A senior scientist of Roscosmos said in a statement: “On August 19, it was intended to issue an impulse to form the Luna-25 spacecraft’s pre-landing elliptical orbit by the mission program. The Luna-25 spacecraft’s contact was disconnected around 14:57 Moscow time. The efforts made on August 19 and 20 to locate the device and communicate with it were unsuccessful.” 

This week would have been historic in the search for the moon, with two landers (one from Russia and one from India) landing on the south pole of the moon within days of each other.   However, it is not as historical as it should be. This incident leaves India’s Chandrayan-3 to become the first spacecraft to land on the south pole of the lunar surface. In preparation for its anticipated landing on Wednesday, the Chandrayaan-3 Lander Module went into its pre-landing orbit of 25 km x 134 km from the lunar surface on Sunday morning.