Russian Luna 25 spacecraft crashed on the Moon – Ars Technica

Update Sunday 8:15 a.m. ET: Russian space officials confirmed the loss of the Luna 25 spacecraft on the social media network Telegram. The failure occurred during a firing of the vehicle’s propulsion system to move it into a “pre-landing” orbit on Saturday morning. However, due to an unspecified problem, the propulsion system instead sent the vehicle crashing into the lunar surface.

It’s a staggering loss for Russia’s space program given that it’s the country’s first attempt to return to the moon since a 1976 robotic mission by the Soviet Union. Roscosmos, the Russian space company, said an “inter-ministerial commission” will be formed to study the incident.

Original post: In a terse update posted on social media network Telegram on Saturday, Russian space company Roscosmos said an “emergency situation” had occurred on board its Luna 25 spacecraft.

The 1.2-ton lunar lander entered orbit around the Moon three days ago, and since then Russian engineers have been sending commands for the small engines to burn to correct the spacecraft’s orbit. Roscosmos sent another such command on Saturday to place Luna 25 into a “pre-landing orbit,” ahead of a landing that was scheduled to take place as early as Monday.

However, during the maneuver at 2:10 p.m. Moscow time (11:10 UTC) on Saturday, a problem arose that did not allow the operation to be completed. “The management team is currently analyzing the situation,” the brief statement from Roscosmos concluded.

Since then, rumors have spread on Russian social media, with the presumption that the spacecraft was probably lost. Russian space journalist Anatoly Zak said it seems possible that Roscosmos has lost communication with Luna 25, but will continue efforts to try to contact the spacecraft.

Russia’s efforts to reestablish communication with Luna 25 will be complicated by the lack of a deep-space communications network. satellite tracker Scott Tilley noted that the country’s ability to communicate with Luna 25 will be limited when the Moon is visible over Russia. There are relatively few of these opportunities in the days ahead.

A major setback

The loss of Luna 25 – should efforts to restore communications with the spacecraft fail – would be a blow to the already faltering Russian space industry. The mission lifted off nine days ago as part of an effort to revive historic space exploration efforts undertaken by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. Essentially, the modest lunar mission was meant to make Russia bigger in space.

As Ars has already reported, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 sent the Russian economy into a tailspin. Meager Russian space program funding went to keep the Mir space station in low Earth orbit and to join NASA in building the International Space Station, mostly with hardware and spare parts from Mir development. The country has continued to launch humans on the Soyuz spacecraft, a technology that dates back more than half a century.

The last Soviet lunar mission was launched in 1976. In terms of interplanetary exploration, the Russians launched two Mars launches in 1996 and 2011, but both failed to leave low Earth orbit. Several European Mars missions have been successfully launched on Russian rockets, but these have relied on European technology to reach and operate on the Red Planet. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has failed to send a probe to the Moon.

Russia has said it doesn’t want to stop at Luna 25. There are plans for a Luna 26 orbiter mission, slated for official launch in 2027, followed by two more ambitious robotic landing expeditions. But those launches are still years away, and given how long it took Russia to get Luna 25 ready for flight, it’s a safe bet that future Luna missions will be further delayed, if they fly at all. .

From now on, questions and concerns about these future missions will be amplified.