[1/2]A photograph taken from the camera of the lunar lander Luna 25 on August 17, 2023 shows the Zeeman crater on the far side of the moon.Source/file photo via Roscosmos/Reuters Acquisition of license rights
MOSCOW, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Russia’s first lunar exploration mission in 47 years failed when its Luna 25 spacecraft lost control and crashed into the moon.
Russia’s state-owned space agency Roscosmos said on Saturday that contact with the spacecraft was lost shortly after the spacecraft encountered problems as it diverted to its pre-landing orbit.
“The device moved into an unpredictable trajectory and disappeared upon impact with the lunar surface,” Roscosmos said in a statement.
A failed mission to prestige was the glorious era of Cold War competition, when Moscow launched the first earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957, and Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin successfully launched mankind’s first satellite. Since then, it has highlighted the decline of Russia’s space power. Space travel in 1961.
Russia has not attempted a lunar mission since Luna 24 in 1976, when Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Kremlin. Luna 25 was scheduled for a soft landing at the lunar south pole on August 21, according to Russian space officials.
Russia is competing with India, whose Chandrayaan 3 probe is set to land at the lunar south pole this week, and more broadly with China and the United States, both of which are pursuing lunar ambitions.
Reported by Guy Faulconbridge Edited by Christina Fincher
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