Why Russia's Luna-25 crash-landed into the Moon

A space race that ended with a crash. On Sunday, the much-hyped race to the Moon between Russia’s Luna-25 and India’s Chandrayaan-3 came to an end when the former crashed on the lunar surface, with the country’s space agency, Roscosmos, confirming the same.

Roscosmos announced that communication with Luna-25 was abruptly lost at 2:57 pm (11:57 GMT) on Saturday. According to preliminary findings, the lander “has ceased to exist following a collision with the Moon’s surface”, Roscosmos said on Sunday.

With Luna-25 crashing, Russia’s hope of establishing itself once again in the space race has come to an end. Moreover, the mission’s failure may be a blow to President Vladimir Putin, who has used Russian achievements in space as part and parcel of his hold on power.

Let’s take a closer look at the Luna-25 crash and also what this means not only for Russia but also for other Moon missions.

The final minutes

Luna-25, the country’s first moon lander in 47 years, that took off on 11 August was aiming to be the first mission to reach the moon’s south polar region, ahead of ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3, which is set to land on the lunar surface on 23 August.

Officials with Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said on Sunday that Luna-25 lander crashed into the moon after an orbital manoeuvre went wrong yesterday (19 August). “At about 14:57 Moscow time (on 19 August), communication with the Luna-25 spacecraft was interrupted,” Roscosmos wrote in an update on Telegram today (in Russian; translation by Google). “The measures taken on 19 and 20 August to search for the device and get into contact with it did not produce any results.”

A preliminary analysis suggests that the wayward orbital manoeuvre sent Luna-25 into an unexpected trajectory, one in which the moon lander “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface,” Roscosmos wrote.

Preliminary findings have revealed that “the apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.”

Roscosmos providing details on what happened said, “Thrust was released to transfer the probe onto the pre-landing orbit. During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the carrying out of the manoeuvre within the specified conditions.”

Speculating the reasons behind the crash, Anatoly Zak, the creator and publisher of RussianSpaceWeb, opined that flight control system of Luna-25 was a vulnerable area, which had to go through many fixes. Moreover, he said Russia had opted for a more ambitious landing, rather than the route chosen by the US, China and even India.

Natan Eismont, a senior scientist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which led the scientific operations of Luna-25, was quoted as telling the New York Times the spacecraft’s engine had not performed as designed during burns to adjust the spacecraft’s course.

“What I can say, and it was noticed by outside observers, that the correction somewhat deviated from what has been stated,” said Eismont, who said he was not directly involved with the mission.

This mission controllers “managed to cope with it successfully until the last manoeuvre,” Eismont said. But the last burn, to move Luna-25 to an orbit ahead of landing that passed within 11 miles of the surface, required a big push that did not go as planned. “Most likely the braking thrust was either too strong or it was in a wrong direction.”

Also read: Why the Moon’s south pole is so fascinating

Eismont suggested perhaps the mission managers should have taken more time.

And even as scientists and space experts ponder the reason behind the crash, Roscosmos officials said they have already formed a team to investigate the crash of Luna-25. “A specially formed interdepartmental commission will deal with the issues of clarifying the reasons for the loss of the moon (lander),” Roscosmos wrote in the Telegram update.

The implications for Russia

Russia’s Luna-25 mission, its first since 1976, was to have made a soft landing on the lunar south pole on Monday, the first in history. Roughly the size of a small car, it was expected to operate for a year on the south pole, where scientists at NASA and other space agencies in recent years have detected traces of frozen water in the craters.

Apart from hunting water ice, Luna-25’s main goal was to examine the regolith and rocks around it, looking at the wispy lunar atmosphere and testing out technology for future landings on the moon, reported Space.com.

The failure of the mission is a setback for Russia that during the Cold War became the first nation, as the Soviet Union, to put a satellite, a man and then a woman in orbit.

The loss of Luna-25 may dent Russia’s future space plans – Roscosmos has the Luna-26 mission, and even the Luna-27 which will see a drilling rig being sent to the moon. Also, it has the Luna-28, a sample-collection mission that aims to return material from the moon’s polar regions to Earth.

However, these will likely be delayed due to Luna-25’s failure, as Roscosmos investigates to find the root cause of the probe’s crash into the moon. As Vitaly Egorov, a blogger who writes extensively on space exploration, said, “The future of the subsequent launches of Luna-26, Luna-27 and beyond is now in question. Even before the accident, they were promised to be launched no earlier than 2027, and now the deadlines can be shifted more or cancelled altogether.”

It also pile pressure on Russia’s $2 trillion economy, and particularly its hi-tech sector, as it grapples with Western sanctions aimed at punishing Moscow for the war in Ukraine.

As some experts note it’s not a good look for Russia, who has fallen a long way in space exploration from the heights of the Soviet era.

Other moon landings

With the crash of Luna-25, all eyes turn to ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 which is on course to become the first spacecraft to land near the lunar south pole. ISRO on Sunday, confirming that landing would likely take place on Wednesday (23 August) said Chandrayaan-3 was functioning normally and getting ready for its scheduled descent, at the beginning of the lunar day-time that extends to about 14 days on Earth.

Also read: Vikram lander breaks away: What next in Chandrayaan-3 mission?

China is also planning to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030 and build a base there, AFP reported. The world’s second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space programme in a push to catch up with the United States and Russia.

The US also has the Artemis mission lined up for late 2025 in which they plan to put two astronauts on the surface near the lunar south pole. However, time needed to build and test the SpaceX lunar lander threatens to push the flight into the 2026-27 timeframe.

With inputs from agencies