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Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon after spinning into an uncontrolled orbit, officials say.
The unmanned craft was due to make a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole, but failed after encountering issues as it moved into its pre-landing orbit.
It was Russia’s first Moon mission in almost 50 years.
The spacecraft was scheduled to land on Monday to explore a part of the Moon which scientists think could hold frozen water and precious elements.
Roskosmos, Russia’s state space corporation, said it lost contact with the Luna-25 shortly after running into difficulties.
Is the russia gov reviving the ‘Luna’ mission name and mission type after decades coincidence when russia is heavily sanctioned by the west and in need of showing it is a industrial and scientific powerhouse? At a time it is according to its own gov ‘at war with NATO’, just like during the cold war?
Doing exploration & science when you go is a given, but it is disingenuous saying that Russia started this mission out of pure scientific interest. The same can of course be said of US moon or Mars programs.
The difference however is this one failed its obvious primary objective: showing that Russia = strong, and that at a time that Russia is desperate for a succes, not another example that it is a shithole.
There’s a lot of reasons, including passing on knowledge from the people who did Luna 24.
I’m also pretty sure Luna 25 has been worked on since at least 2017, not to mention that Luna just means moon.