4 min readNew DelhiAug 23, 2023 07:40 AM IST
First published on: Aug 20, 2023 at 02:47 PM IST
Russia’s Luna-25 has crashed on the Moon’s surface, the country’s space agency said Sunday in a disappointing end to its first mission to the lunar surface 47 years after the last landing by the former Soviet Union.
This leaves India’s Chandrayaan-3 on course to become the first spacecraft to land near the lunar south pole.
On Sunday morning, the Chandrayaan-3 Lander Module moved into its pre-landing orbit of 25 km x 134 km from the lunar surface, in preparation for its scheduled landing Wednesday.
It is from this orbit that the spacecraft will begin its descent around 1745 IST Wednesday. Touchdown is expected after 15 minutes.
The Indian Space Research Organisation said Chandrayaan-3 was functioning normally and getting ready for its scheduled descent Wednesday, at the beginning of the lunar day-time that extends to about 14 days on Earth.
“The module would undergo internal checks and await the sunrise at the designated landing site (on the moon). The powered descent is expected to commence on August 23, 2023, around 1745 hours IST,” ISRO said.
“India’s pursuit of space exploration reaches a remarkable milestone with the impending Chandrayaan-3 mission, poised to achieve a soft-landing on the lunar surface. This achievement marks a significant step forward for Indian science, engineering, technology and industry, symbolising our nation’s progress in space exploration,” ISRO said in a statement.
“The soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 is a monumental moment that not only fuels curiosity but also sparks a passion for exploration within the minds of our youth. It generates a profound sense of pride and unity as we collectively celebrate the prowess of Indian science and technology. It will contribute to fostering an environment of scientific inquiry and innovation,” it said.
The Luna-25 was scheduled to make a soft landing on the lunar surface August 21, two days ahead of the Chandrayaan-3. Both were supposed to land in the region around the Moon’s south pole.
But the Russian spacecraft developed problems Saturday as it tried to move into a pre-landing orbit.
Russian space agency Roscosmos said “an emergency situation” had arisen in the spacecraft because of which the orbit-reduction manoeuvre could not be completed. It had also lost contact with the spacecraft. It said it was trying to rectify the problem.
On Sunday afternoon, Roscosmos announced that Luna-25 had crash-landed on the Moon’s surface.
“The measures taken on August 19 (Saturday) and 20 (Sunday) to search for Luna-25 and get in touch with it did not produce any results,” Roscosmos said in a statement.
“According to the results of the preliminary analysis, due to the deviation of the actual parameters of the impulse from the calculated ones, the automatic station switched to an off-design orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface,” it said.
Luna-25 was modern Russia’s first Moon mission. The erstwhile Soviet Union’s last lunar mission was way back in 1976, with a successful landing by Luna-24. In fact, that was the last spacecraft to land on the Moon, until China’s Chang’e-3 reached there 37 years later in 2013. Chang’e-4 and Chang’e-5 are the only other spacecraft to have landed on the Moon since then – Chang’e 4 touched down in January 2019 and Chang’e-5, a sample return mission, in December 2020.
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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