A Russian spacecraft is scheduled to land at the moon’s south pole on Monday to probe what scientists believe to be the presence of frozen water and precious elements.
Russia’s national space agency Roscosmos has announced that an “extraordinary event” occurred while the Russian Luna 25 spacecraft was preparing to transition into orbit before landing.
The Russian probe is scheduled to land at the lunar south pole on Monday, as part of a race among the great powers to explore parts of the moon that scientists believe contain frozen water and precious elements.
In a short statement on Saturday, Roscosmos said: “During the operation, an unusual situation occurred inside the automated station, which made it impossible to carry out the operation with the specified parameters.”
It said experts were analyzing the situation but did not provide further details.
Luna 25 entered lunar orbit on Wednesday, becoming the first Russian spacecraft to do so since 1976.
Roughly the size of a small car, it aims to operate for a year in Antarctica, where scientists at NASA and other space agencies have recently detected traces of frozen water in craters.
The presence of water could affect major space powers and enable long-term human stays on the moon that would allow mining of lunar resources.
Earlier, Roscosmos said it had received the first results from the Luna 25 mission and was analyzing them.
The agency also posted an image of the moon’s Zeeman crater taken from the spacecraft. This crater is her third deepest in the lunar southern hemisphere, measuring 190 km (118 miles) in diameter and 8 km (5 miles) deep.
Roscosmos said the data received so far will provide information about the chemical elements in the lunar soil and will also facilitate the operation of instruments designed to study near the lunar surface.
The device recorded “micrometeorite impact events”.