The Russian probe Luna-25, which was supposed to be the first spacecraft to land on the south pole of the Moon, crashed on the surface of the satellite after having rotated in an uncontrolled orbit, announced the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.
uncontrolled orbit
“During the operation at the automatic station, an emergency situation occurred that prevented the maneuver from being carried out according to the planned parameters”, wrote Roscosmos in a statement released on Telegram.
The problems on board the spacecraft arose when, at 14:10 in Moscow (12:10 in Lisbon), the engines propelled Luna-25 into pre-lunar landing orbit, writes the Spanish news agency EFE.
“The situation is currently being analyzed by experts from the control group”, says the official statement.
The spacecraft, which was launched on Aug. 11 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East, entered orbit on Wednesday after a journey of five days and nearly 10 hours.
At all times, Roscosmos reported that the probe’s systems were operating normally, having sent images of the lunar surface to Earth and detected the impact of a micrometeorite, among other phenomena.
The probe was due to land on the moon’s surface on August 21, two days before the Indian probe Chandrayaan-3, which launched on July 14.
Luna-25, heir to the Soviet Luna-24, the third spacecraft to sample the lunar surface in August 1976, hoped to find water in the form of ice on the Moon.
2023-08-20 09:07:49
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