Russia’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century may have encountered serious trouble. The Luna-25 spacecraft was due to enter the final pre-landing orbit around the moon on its own today (August 19) before making a landing attempt around Monday (August 21), but the probe encountered problems during its engine work .
Russian space agency Roscosmos wrote on Telegram today (Russian; Google translation): “During operation, an emergency situation occurred on the automatic station and it was impossible to manoeuvre according to the specified parameters.” “The management team is currently working on the Analyze the situation.”
There has been speculation that Luna-25 has been lost, which would be quite a blow to the Russian space program if true. Luna-25 is the first lunar mission developed by modern Russia and the first since Luna-24 in 1976.
Launched on Aug. 10, Luna-25 reached lunar orbit six days later and is expected to land near the lunar south pole as early as Monday. The lander carries eight different scientific instruments that, if it recovers from today’s failure, will be used by Luna-25 to search for water ice and conduct research in this strange Antarctic region that has not yet been explored by a lander or rover. Various studies.
