Russia’s first mission to the moon in 47 years failed on Saturday when its lunar-landing spacecraft crashed into the moon’s surface, Russia’s space agency said on Sunday.
Luna-25 was planned to make a soft landing on the moon’s surface on Monday. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said it lost contact with the spacecraft as it was preparing to enter the pre-landing orbit. Efforts to locate the unmanned spacecraft failed, it said.
Roscosmos said, citing a preliminary analysis, that the spacecraft entered an “uncalculated orbit” after actual pulse parameters deviated from the ones the agency calculated, and it “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface.”
The agency said it was setting up an interdepartmental commission to investigate the reasons behind the collision.
The space mission took off on Aug. 11 local time and had already sent back images of the moon. It was expected to land on Monday, two days before India’s mission is scheduled to land.
Russia was hoping to become the first country to make a soft landing on the south pole, where NASA has determined there to be traces of icy water.
