Russia loses the space race when the Luna-25 probe crashes into the natural satellite

He kremlinin need of good news, received a severe setback on Sunday when the Russian probe crashed moon-25 against lunar surface when it was about to become the first ship to land on the South Pole of the Earth’s satellite.

“The moon-25 assumed an unplanned orbit and ceased to exist as a result of the collision with the lunar surface”, reported the Russian space agency, roscosmoson his Telegram channel.

LOOK HERE: An emergency situation prevents the Russian probe Luna-25 from preparing for the moon landing

This paves the way for it to be the Indian probe Chandrayaan-3 -which successfully carried out the approach maneuver this morning- the one that reaches that inhospitable territory of the Moon for the first time before traditional powers such as Russia, USA and China.

The lunar orbit, an insurmountable obstacle

Landing on the terrestrial satellite and returning to tell it is not an easy task. There are many automatic stations that have crashed throughout history. In fact, the India He now makes his third attempt.

But Moscow He promised them happy when this Wednesday Luna-25 reached lunar orbit without incident, began to revolve around the satellite and send images of its surface. Roscomos kept the date of the moon landing unchanged, August 21.

Something went wrong on Saturday. The Russian agency raised all alarms by reporting a “emergency situation” when the engines propelled Luna-25 into pre-moon landing orbit.

Russian engineers in Land They lost communication with the station at 2:57 p.m. on Saturday (11:57 GMT) and were never able to recover it.

According to the results of the preliminary analysis, the reason for the accident was “the deviation from the actual impulse parameters” previously calculated.

Luna-25 only had time to send back several images of the lunar surface – the zeeman crater184 kilometers in diameter -, carry out some measurements and scientific experiments, and record the impact of a micrometeorite against the Moon.

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The price of sanctions

After a dark few years for the Russian space program, which led to a purge of the rocket industry, the Russian president, Vladimir Putinboasted in April that it had been several years – more than a hundred launches in a row – that Russian ships had not suffered accidents.

Roscosmos also downplayed the decision of the European Space Agency (ESA) to suspend cooperation with the Russian lunar program last year after the start of the war in Ukraine, but the consequences are in sight.

Putin, who did not attend the launch of the probe – in 2016 he presided over the failed first launch from the cosmodrome Vostochni-, has dedicated in the last two years a large part of the public budget to manufacture weapons, ammunition, drones and other equipment for the military campaign in Ukraine. According to experts, the rest of the state programs were no longer a priority.

Russia hoped that the probe would be the first to find water in the form of ice in craters and other hidden places on the Moon, in addition to taking samples from the surface, studying the upper layer of lunar regolith, from its relief to its composition and solidity. , and also analyze its exosphere.

Among other equipment, the ship had a LAZMA mass spectrometer to study the chemical composition of the lunar surface; an ARIES neutral and charged particle detector; a PML lunar dust detector; an infrared LIS spectrometer and an ADRON-LR gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer.

Russia lags behind in the lunar race

the soviet moon-2 was the first probe to land on that satellite in 1959, a feat that USA he could only emulate years later with his ranger program.

Space conquest is one of the greatest patriotic pride, but Russia’s technological lag has been evident in recent years.

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The POT confirmed a few weeks ago the launch in 2024 of Artemis II, the first manned mission to the satellite since 1972 (apollo 17). If you successfully complete that orbital mission -something that Artemis I already completed without crew in 2022-, the artemis iii It will land on the South Pole in 2025.

China, which in 2019 became the first country to land a probe on the far side of the Moon, recently announced the construction of a scientific exploration base at the South Pole over the next decade.

In the absence of state investment, Moscow has decided to cooperate with Beijing in a manned program and in the 2035 launch of the International Lunar Research Station. But on Wednesday, if all goes according to plan, it will be the Indian probe that lands on the South Pole.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.