Recently Russia launched its first Moon mission in nearly 50 years, hoping to send an unmanned spacecraft to the southern pole of the lunar surface. Now Roscosmos reports, the Luna-25 lunar lander has crashed into the Moon.
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00:00 Recently, Russia launched its first moon mission in nearly 50 years, hoping to send an unmanned
00:09 spacecraft to the southern pole of the lunar surface.
00:12 Now Roscosmos reports the Luna 25 lunar lander has crashed into the moon.
00:17 The space agency lost communication with the craft on Saturday as it was entering its pre-landing
00:22 orbit.
00:23 It wasn't supposed to touch down for another couple of days, expected to make observations
00:27 during the interim.
00:28 A Roscosmos spokesperson said the issue likely has to do with the spacecraft entering into
00:32 an elongated orbit.
00:34 To do this, the engines had to be fired, and because they lost communication with the craft,
00:38 they couldn't turn the engines off.
00:39 This likely caused the craft to enter into the moon's orbital pathway and resulted in
00:43 the craft crashing.
00:45 However, this isn't a complete surprise to many, as questions arose about Russia's ability
00:49 to complete this mission last year.
00:51 Several parts of the Luna 25 spacecraft were to be manufactured by European companies,
00:56 but due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they declined to complete the orders.
01:00 This forced Roscosmos to produce their own parts instead, with this crash raising questions
01:04 about Russia's future in space.
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