The first Russian attempt to land on the moon in nearly 50 years has failed. The unmanned Luna-25 has crashed into the moon, the Russian space agency Roskosmos reported on Sunday, according to Russian news agencies. Just before the crash, the lunar lander had entered an “uncontrolled orbit around the moon”. On Saturday all communication suddenly stopped. It is not yet clear what exactly went wrong.
Last week the Loena-25 was successfully launched. The plane entered lunar orbit on Wednesday. The intended final destination of the journey was the Boguslawski crater at the moon’s south pole. Geopolitical powers invest a lot of money to explore that area, because ice and rare resources are likely to be found there. These could serve to provide a future lunar base with drinking water, but also to make rocket fuel, which would save very expensive raw material transports from Earth.
The failed Luna-25 mission is a great disappointment for Russia, which is no longer the major space player it was during the Cold War. In 1966, the Soviet Union was the first to achieve a moon landing. Five years earlier, with Yuri Gagarin, it also brought the first human into space. Russia has not attempted a moon landing since 1976. Next week — if all goes well — an Indian lunar lander will land on the south pole of the moon.
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