The Russian space probe Luna-25, which was postulated to be the first ship to fly to the South Pole of the satellite, crashed yesterday after a technical failure caused it to assume an “unpredicted orbit” and collide with the lunar surface, as reported by the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, on its Telegram channel.
Everything was on track and as planned since the unmanned probe took off on August 11. On Wednesday, the probe reached lunar orbit without any setbacks. On Saturday, the spacecraft even sent back photos of the lunar surface and reported the impact of a micrometeorite against it.
It was all set for Luna-25 today to become the first spacecraft to land on the Moon’s South Pole, ahead of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, which had taken off more than a month ago before, on July 14, and that he plans to leave on August 23 or 24.
The prize, in addition to being the first to land on a part of the satellite that has never been done before because it is a complicated terrain, consisted of the possibility of finding water in the form of ice.
But on the same Saturday, problems began for the Luna-25. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, was reporting an “emergency situation” as the engines boosted Luna-25 into orbit prior to liftoff. Russian engineers on Earth lost communication with the probe at 2:57 p.m. Saturday, Spanish time, and were never able to regain it.
According to the results of the preliminary analysis, the reason for the accident was that, due to “the deviation of the actual thrust parameters from the calculated ones, the ship ended up changing to an orbit outside the established one and went be destroyed as a result of a collision with the lunar surface”, explained Roscosmos.
Luna-25 only had time to send several images of the lunar surface – the Zeeman crater, 184 kilometers in diameter –, perform some measurements and scientific experiments and record the impact of a micrometeorite against the Moon.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos finally announced the creation of an “interdepartmental commission to study the specific reasons for the loss of contact with the ship”.
The Moon is once again in the crosshairs of all space agencies, as returning to the satellite is considered the essential preliminary step to being able to one day send manned missions to Mars. It is expected that one day bases will be established on the satellite as an intermediate point on the journey to the red planet, bases that will need water, and hence the interest in moving away from the lunar poles.
But despite the fact that humans first set foot on the Moon more than half a century ago, this is a challenge that is far from easy or to be overcome. As an example: the last three missions that have tried have failed.
Before Luna-25, in 2019 a private Israeli mission lost its probe on launch. Then it was the turn of the private Japanese mission Hakuto-R, which crashed on April 25. As the ship neared the surface, it miscalculated the distance, accelerated, and ended up crashing into the lunar soil. This mission carried the Rashid rover, which was the United Arab Emirates’ first attempt to join the space race. And we must also not forget that the rocket designed by Space X to take manned trips to the Moon exploded on its test flight in April.
Now we’ll have to keep an eye out this week for India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, which has a lander that also carries a rover.
The last two missions that have managed to reach the Moon have been Chinese. On January 3, 2019, the Chang’e 4 mission achieved a milestone: the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon. And on November 28, 2020, a Long March 5 rocket boosted the Chang’e 5 mission, which it managed to land on December 1, near Mons Rümker, an isolated volcano in the northwest of the visible face of the Moon , and which brought back to Earth almost two kilograms of lunar soil samples.