What went wrong with Russia’s LUNA – 25

A Soyuz 2.1b rocket launching from the Vostochny cosmodrome is transporting the Luna-25 lander 180 kilometers (km) north of Blagoveschensk, in the Amur region.

• Russian Luna 25 went down: 

The space agency Roscosmos reported on Sunday that Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft, which was intended to perform an easy landing on the south pole of the moon, has collided with the lunar surface. According to the Russian Space Agency, a difference in between propulsion maneuver’s calculated and real parameters sent Luna-25 into an unanticipated orbit, which is what ultimately led to Luna-25’s collision with the lunar surface.

“An impulse was given on August 19 by the Luna-25 flight program to establish its pre-landing elliptic orbit. At 14:57 Moscow time, communication with the Luna-25 equipment was halted. According to Roscosmos State Space Corporation’s official Telegram channel, attempts to find the thing and make contact with it on August 19 and 20 were unsuccessful.

The space agency added that an interdepartmental commission had been formed to look into the reasons behind Luna-25’s failure. 

The Russian space agency had reported some “abnormal situation” with Luna-25 hours prior to the accident. Roscosmos claims that when trying to get into a pre-landing orbit, the spacecraft encountered an unknown issue. The precise nature of the issue is still unknown, and the agency’s experts are actively investigating and assessing the circumstance.

In a Telegram post, Roscosmos explained that “during the procedure, an abnormal situation happened on board the automatic station, preventing the maneuver from being performed with the specified parameters.”

• Does the crash of Luna-25 affect Chandrayaan-3’s schedule?

Chandryaan-3’s schedule won’t be affected by Luna-25’s accident, and India’s lunar mission is on track to land softly on the moon’s south pole on August 23. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has verified that the landing will take place on April 4 at 6:04 PM (IST). The second and final Chandrayaan-3 deboosting round was carried out by ISRO on Sunday.

The LM orbit has successfully been lowered to 25 km x 134 km thanks to the second & final deboosting (slowing down) operation. The module would do internal inspections and wait for sunrise at the designated landing site. The powered descent is scheduled to begin on August 23, 2023, at about 1745 IST, according to ISRO.