On August 19, 2023, Russia’s hopes of success in its first Moon mission in 47 years were dashed when things went wrong in a critical maneuver. Russia’s failed Luna 25 lunar lander was detected in images obtained by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).NASA finds Luna 25 debris
While in orbit around the Moon on August 19, Luna 25 performed a significant maneuver as it prepared to make final adjustments for landing. However, the process of firing the thrusters, which should have taken only 84 seconds, took 127 seconds, putting Luna 25 on a collision course with the Moon’s surface. Russian space agency Roscosmos lost radio contact with Luna 25 47 minutes after the thruster began burning, and attempts to reach the spacecraft again were unsuccessful, an obvious indication that Luna 25 was destroyed.
On August 21, Roscosmos published a detailed report on where Luna 25 crashed. NASA examined the coordinates specified by Russia with the LRO satellite in lunar orbit. LRO captured a series of images for approximately four hours on August 24. These images were compared with previous images taken before the accident.
Looking at an image taken in June 2022, the LRO operations team found that the latest images showed a new crater close to Russia’s estimate. Located on the southwestern rim of the Pontécoulant G crater near the Moon’s south polar region, the new crater was 10 m in diameter and had a negative elevation of 360 m below the Lunar elevation standard. The wreckage of Luna 25 was found 400 km away from the planned landing site. By the way, although the missed distance may seem far, it is actually not. The distance between the Moon and the Earth is 384,400 kilometers. In other words, there was only a 0.1 percent distance left to the target where Russia wanted to land.
42319
