This handout photograph taken by the Luna-25 rover before its mission failed and released by Russian Space Agency Roscosmos on 17 August 2023, shows the Zeeman lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. Photo: HANDOUT / AFP
By Guy Faulconbridge for Reuters*
Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed after its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and smashed into the moon.
Russia's state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft shortly after a problem occurred as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit on Saturday.
"The apparatus 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.
Russia's Luna-25 space craft, seen before launch, has crashed into the moon. Photo: AFP / Handout / Russian Space Agency Roscosmos
Failure for the prestige mission underscores the decline of Russia's space power since the glory days of Cold War competition when Moscow was the first to launch a satellite to orbit the Earth - Sputnik 1, in 1957 - and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space in 1961.
Russia has not attempted a moon mission since Luna-24 in 1976, when Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Kremlin.
Luna-25 was supposed to execute a soft landing on the south pole of the moon on 21 August, according to Russian space officials.
Russia has been racing against India, whose Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is scheduled to land on the moon's south pole this week, and more broadly against China and the United States which both have advanced lunar ambitions.
- This story was first published by Reuters.