Luna-25 engine did not shut down in time: Roscosmos

In a statement on Sunday, Roscosmos had said the actual change in momentum of the spacecraft, as it was lowered into the pre-landing orbit, deviated from the calculated values, after which it crashed on the moon.

In this image made from video released by Roscosmos State Space Corporation, the Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the moon lander Luna-25 automatic station takes off from a launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East on Aug 11. (AP)

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Russian spacecraft Luna-25 crash-landed on the moon because its engine did not shut off in time, and continued to work longer than it should have, Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted the head of country’s space agency as saying on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, the engine shutdown did not occur normally, in accordance with the sequence diagram, but according to a time cutoff, and instead of the planned 84 seconds, it worked for 127 seconds. This was the main cause of the accident of the apparatus,” Yuri Borisov, head of Roscosmos, said on Rossiya 24 TV channel, according to RIA Novosti report.

In a statement on Sunday, Roscosmos had said the actual change in momentum of the spacecraft, as it was lowered into the pre-landing orbit, deviated from the calculated values, after which it crashed on the moon.

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Read | What the Luna-25 crash tells us about Moon landings

Luna-25 was modern Russia’s first attempt to land a spacecraft on moon, 47 years after Luna-24, launched by the then Soviet Union had made a successful landing. In fact, between 1966 and 1976, Soviet spacecraft made nine successful landings on the moon.

Borisov, however, told the TV channel the experience of 1960s and 1970s was “practically lost” now. “The invaluable experience of landing on the moon, accumulated in the 60-70s, is practically lost… due to the interruption of the lunar programmes for 50 years, we have to re-master the technologies,” he said.

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