Incorrect Orbit
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Russia’s Luna 25 probe crashes into the moon after switching to incorrect orbit comms were lost at 11:57 (UTC) Saturday Roscosmos says
Russia’s Luna-25 automatic interplanetary station has collided with the Moon, space agency Roscosmos has said.
“According to the results of a preliminary analysis… the Luna-25 spacecraft switched to a non-designated orbit and ceased to operate due to a collision with the surface of the Moon,” Roscosmos said on Sunday.
The probe was due to receive a signal to form a pre-landing elliptical orbit on Saturday, but communication was lost at 14:57 Moscow time (11: 57 GMT), the agency explained. Efforts on Saturday and Sunday to locate the craft and restore contact were unsuccessful.
A commission involving representatives of several agencies will be assembled to establish the reasons for the loss of the probe, Roscosmos said.
Moon surface Roscosmos / ICI RAS
Luna-25 was launched on August 11 by a Soyuz 2.1b rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Amur Region of Russia’s Far East. It was the first probe sent to the Moon by Russia since the Soviet era.
The mission aimed to achieve the first ever landing near the south pole of Earth’s satellite, known for its difficult terrain.
The spacecraft reached lunar orbit earlier this week, sending back high-resolution photos of the dark side of the Moon.
The breakthrough images were of the enormous Zeeman crater, featuring sides which rise almost 8km (5 miles) above the lunar surface. Being on the part of the Moon perpetually faced away from Earth, the crater is not observable by astronomers.
“The image taken today at 08:23 Moscow time shows the south polar crater Zeeman on the far side of the Moon. The coordinates of the center of the crater correspond to 75 degrees south latitude and 135 degrees west longitude,” a Roscosmos statement confirmed.
“The images obtained significantly complement the currently available information about this crater.”
The imagery was created using the STS-L television camera complex, created by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Luna-25 has also carried out measurements of gamma ray and neutron flux from the surface of the Moon, as well as the parameters of circumlunar space plasma and the gas and dust exosphere in the circumlunar orbit, Roscosmos noted.
Its landing was scheduled to take place on or around August 21.
The main goal of the mission was to examine the lunar soil for the presence of ice, with Roscosmos also saying it wanted to test soft-landing technology and conduct long-term research on the lunar exosphere and the upper layer of the south pole’s surface.
Source Roscosmos/RT
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