Inspenet, August 21, 2023.
The Russian spacecraft named Luna-25 suffered a mishap during its attempted landing on the Moon, which resulted in the cancellation of the project. Roscosmos, Russia’s state space agency, reported that it lost communication with the lunar probe after experiencing difficulties during the orbiting phase prior to descent.
Russia’s first attempt at a lunar mission in almost half a century ended in failure when the Luna-25 spacecraft experienced problems and lost control, culminating in an impact on the surface of the Moon .
Roscosmos, the Russian state entity dedicated to space exploration, reported the loss of communication with the probe due to difficulties encountered while placing it in orbit before its landing attempt.
“The device moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon ,” Roskosmos said in a statement about the mission, which had raised hopes in Moscow of returning to the lunar race of the moon. great powers.
The failure highlights the decline in Russian space influence since the glory days of the Cold War, when Moscow achieved the milestone of being the first to send a satellite into Earth orbit in 1957 (Sputnik 1) and when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin he became the pioneer in traveling to space in 1961.
This development comes at a time when Russia’s $2 trillion economy is facing one of its biggest challenges in decades: the pressure of Western-imposed sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
Although missions to the Moon are extremely complicated and have seen both US and Soviet attempts fail, Moscow had not undertaken a lunar mission since Luna-24 in 1976 , when communist leader Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Kremlin.
The position of India before the failure of the Russian ship
Russia is in competition with India, whose Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is scheduled to land on the moon’s south pole this week, as well as China and the United States, both with advanced lunar ambitions.
Following news of the failure of the Luna-25 mission, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) shared on Platform X (formerly known as Twitter) that Chandrayaan-3 was scheduled to land on the Moon on August 23. . Russian authorities were hopeful that the Luna-25 mission would demonstrate Russia’s ability to compete with major powers.
Anatoly Zak, founder and publisher of www.RussianSpaceWeb.com, a site that closely follows Russian space programs, noted that Moscow had opted for a much more ambitious lunar landing before embarking on a simpler orbital mission, following the strategy commonly employed by the Soviet Union, the United States, China and the United States. India.
Although Luna-25 managed to leave Earth orbit, unlike the failed Phobos-Grunt mission attempt in 2011 to one of the moons of Mars, this incident could have an impact on Russia’s lunar program, which had multiple planned missions in the years to come, including a possible collaboration with China.
Russian scientists have repeatedly expressed concern about the weakening of the space program due to mismanagement, the pursuit of grandiose but unrealistic projects, corruption, and the diminishing rigor of Russia’s science education system in the post-Soviet era.
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