Russia’s Luna-25 Spacecraft Suffers Technical Glitch in Pre-Landing Maneuver

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russia reported an “irregular state of affairs” Saturday on its moon-bound Luna-25 spacecraft, which launched earlier this month.

The nation’s area company, Roscosmos, mentioned the spacecraft bumped into unspecified bother whereas attempting to enter a pre-landing orbit, and that its specialists have been analyzing the state of affairs.

“In the course of the operation, an irregular state of affairs occurred on board the automated station, which didn’t enable the maneuver to be carried out with the desired parameters,” Roscosmos mentioned in a Telegram publish.

Roscosmos didn’t specify whether or not the incident will forestall Luna-25 from making a touchdown.

The spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, racing to land on Earth’s satellite tv for pc forward of an Indian spacecraft. The lunar south pole is of explicit curiosity to scientists, who imagine the completely shadowed polar craters could include water. The frozen water within the rocks may very well be remodeled by future explorers into air and rocket gasoline.

Additionally on Saturday, the Russian spacecraft produced its first outcomes. Although Roscosmos mentioned the data was present process evaluation, the company reported that the preliminary knowledge obtained contained details about the chemical parts of the lunar soil and that its gear had registered a “micrometeorite influence.”

Roscosmos posted pictures of the Zeeman crater – the third largest within the moon’s southern hemisphere – taken from the spacecraft. The crater has a diameter of 190 kilometers (118 miles) and is eight kilometers (5 miles) deep.

The launch from Russia’s Vostochny spaceport within the Far East of the Luna-25 craft on Aug. 10 was Russia’s first since 1976 when it was a part of the Soviet Union.

The Russian lunar lander was anticipated to achieve the moon between Aug. 21 – 23, across the similar time as an Indian craft which was launched on July 14.

Solely three governments have managed profitable moon landings: the Soviet Union, america and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the primary to land on the moon’s south pole.

Roscosmos mentioned it desires to indicate Russia “is a state able to delivering a payload to the moon,” and “guarantee Russia’s assured entry to the moon’s floor.”

Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it tougher for the nation to entry Western know-how, impacting its area program. The Luna-25 was initially meant to hold a small moon rover however that concept was deserted to scale back the burden of the craft for improved reliability, analysts say.

“International electronics are lighter, home electronics are heavier,” Egorov mentioned. “Whereas scientists may need the duty of finding out lunar water, for Roscosmos the primary job is just to land on the moon — to get well misplaced Soviet experience and discover ways to carry out this job in a brand new period.”

The spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is essential to his efforts to make Russia an area superpower and transfer Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A earlier Indian attempt to land on the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s floor.

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