Russia's Lunar Mission Fails After Luna-25 Crash

Facts

• Russia's first moon mission in 47 years has failed after the Luna-25 automatic lunar station collided with the lunar surface and crashed, the country's space agency Roscosmos said on Sunday.¹
• The crash came after the crewless spacecraft attempted to enter pre-landing orbit ahead of a planned soft landing on Monday on the moon's south pole. Instead, it entered an undesignated orbit and lost contact, the agency stated.²
• According to Roscosmos, communication with Luna-25 was lost at 14:57 Moscow time (11:57 GMT) on Saturday, and efforts to locate the spacecraft and restore contact were unsuccessful. It added that an investigation would be established into the causes of the crash.^
• Luna-25, launched on August 11 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Amur Region of the country's Far East, was Russia's first mission since the Soviet era and had been racing to land on the moon's south pole ahead of India's Chandrayaan-3.⁴
• Earlier this week, the spacecraft — expected to operate and conduct long-term research on the lunar exosphere and examine lunar soil for the presence of ice — reached lunar orbit and sent back high-resolution photos of the moon's dark side.⁵
• Russian officials were reportedly expecting the success of the Luna-25 mission to revive Russia's moon program, as well as show the world Moscow can compete with the superpowers in space despite the months-long Ukraine war and Western sanctions.⁶

Sources: ¹NDTV, ²The Washington Post, ³TASS, ⁴ITN, ⁵RT International, and ⁶Reuters.

Narratives

• Anti-Russia narrative, as provided by NDTV. This failure underscores Russia's decline as a former space power since the 1960s, when the country became the first to launch a satellite to orbit the Earth and a Russian citizen became the first man to travel into space. Moscow has tried to harken back to its Soviet days, but has failed to become an aerospace superpower in the modern age — primarily due to deep-rooted corruption, a decline in its scientific education system, and the Kremlin's insistence on making the moon mission a PR activity rather than a scientific expedition.
• Pro-Russia narrative, as provided by The Moscow Times. With the launch of the Luna-25 spacecraft, Russia attempted to return to the space race and show western countries it could successfully operate the world's most ambitious lunar operation despite the massive cost of military operations in Ukraine. Luna-25's crash-landing is a blow to Russia's space ambitions. However, while the US and its allies can mock Russia's failed lunar mission, Moscow will continue to use its scientific capabilities and resources to explore the moon's water and rare earth deposits.

Predictions