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Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure

Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years failed when its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and crashed into the moon after a problem preparing for pre-landing orbit, underscoring the post-Soviet decline of a once mighty space programme.

Russia’s state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft at 11:57 GMT on Saturday after a problem as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit. A soft landing had been planned for Monday.

“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.

It said a special inter-departmental commission had been formed to investigate the reasons behind the loss of the Luna-25 craft, whose mission had raised hopes in Moscow that Russia was returning to the big power moon race.

The failure underscored 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.

It also comes as Russia’s $2 trillion economy faces its biggest external challenge for decades: the pressure of both Western sanctions and fighting the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two.

Though moon missions are fiendishly difficult, and many U.S. and Soviet attempts have failed, Russia had not attempted a moon mission since Luna-24 in 1976, when Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Kremlin.

Russian state television put news of the loss of Luna-25 at number 8 in its line up at noon and gave it just 26 seconds of coverage, after a news about fires on Tenerife and a 4 minute item about a professional holiday for Russian pilots and crews.

FAILED MOONSHOT
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.

FILE PHOTO: A picture taken from the camera of the lunar landing spacecraft Luna-25 shows the Zeeman crater located on the far side of the moon, August 17, 2023. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT./File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

As news of the Luna-25 failure broke, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Chandrayaan-3 was set to land on Aug. 23.

Russian officials had hoped that the Luna-25 mission would show Russia can compete with the superpowers in space despite its post-Soviet decline and the vast cost of the Ukraine war.

“The flight control system was a vulnerable area, which had to go through many fixes,” said Anatoly Zak, the creator and publisher of www.RussianSpaceWeb.com which tracks Russian space programmes.

Zak said Russia had also gone for the much more ambitious moon landing before undertaking a simpler orbital mission – the usual practice for the Soviet Union, the United States, China and India.

While Luna-25 went beyond the earth’s orbit – unlike the failed 2011 Fobos-Grunt mission to one of the moons of Mars – the crash could impact Russia’s moon programme, which envisages several more missions over coming years including a possible joint effort with China.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russias-moon-mission-falters-after-problem-entering-pre-landing-orbit-2023-08-20/

Lander Vikram Sends First Pics Of Moon After Detaching From Spacecraft

The LI Camera -1 also captured images of the Harkhebi J crater, which has a diameter of approximately 43 km.

Chandrayaan 3’s lander Vikram shared latest images of the moon today after completing a manoeuvre that took it closer to its destination.

India’s space agency ISRO shared stunning images taken by the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1, on X, formerly known as Twitter. The montage of images shows different craters of the moon, one of which is the Giordano Bruno crater, one of the youngest large craters on the moon.

The LI Camera -1 also captured images of the Harkhebi J crater, which has a diameter of approximately 43 km. The pictures were taken after the lander successfully detached from the spacecraft’s propulsion module yesterday.

“Thanks for the ride, mate,” ISRO tweeted, imagining a conversation between the lander module and the spacecraft. The module is set to descend to a lower orbital after a deboosting or slowing down, which will bring it closer to the moon.

Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft comes closer to Moon’s surface after undergoeing another maneuver

Post its launch on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 entered into lunar orbit on August 5, following which two orbit reduction maneuvers were carried out on August 6 & 9.

Over five moves in the three weeks since the July 14 launch, ISRO had lifted the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into orbits farther and farther away from the Earth. (File)

India’s ambitious third Moon mission’s spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 on Monday underwent another maneuver, bringing it even closer to the Lunar surface, ISRO said. The national space agency headquartered here said the spacecraft has now achieved a “near-circular orbit” around the moon.

Post its launch on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 entered into the lunar orbit on August 5, following which two orbit reduction maneuvers were carried out on August 6 and 9.

“Orbit circularisation phase commences. Precise maneuver performed today has achieved a near-circular orbit of 150 km x 177 km,” ISRO said in a tweet.

The next operation is planned for August 16, around 8:30 am, it said. As the mission progresses, a series of maneuvers is being conducted by ISRO to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3’s orbit and position it over the lunar poles.

According to ISRO sources, one more maneuver will be performed on the spacecraft on August 16 to reach 100 km orbit, following which the landing module, comprising the lander and rover will break away from the propulsion module.

After this, the lander is expected to undergo a “deboost” (the process of slowing down) and make a soft landing on the south polar region of the Moon on August 23.

Last week, ISRO Chairman S Somnath had said the most critical part of the landing is the process of bringing the velocity of the lander from 30 km height to the final landing, and that the ability to transfer the spacecraft from horizontal to vertical direction is the “trick we have to play” here.

He said, “the velocity at the starting of the landing process is almost 1.68 km per second, but this speed is horizontal to the surface of the moon. The Chandrayaan 3 here is tilted almost 90 degrees, it has to become vertical. So this whole process of turning from horizontal to vertical is a very interesting calculation mathematically. We have done a lot of simulations. It is here where we had the problem last time (Chandrayaan 2).”

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/science/chandrayaan3-spacecraft-comes-closer-to-moons-surface-after-undergoeing-another-maneuver-101692061082614.html

Russia Sends Spacecraft To Moon, Weeks After Chandrayaan-3 Launch

The Russian lunar mission, the first since 1976, is racing against India, which sent up its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander last month, and more broadly with the United States and China, which both have advanced lunar exploration programmes.

A Soyuz 2.1v rocket carrying the Luna-25 craft blasted off from the east of Moscow on Friday.

Russia launched its first probe to the Moon in almost 50 years on Friday, a mission designed to give fresh impetus to its space sector, which has been struggling for years and become isolated by the conflict in Ukraine.

The launch of the Luna-25 probe is Moscow’s first lunar mission since 1976, when the USSR was a pioneer in the conquest of space.

The rocket with the Luna-25 probe lifted off at 02:10 am Moscow time (2310 GMT Thursday) from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, according to live images broadcast by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

The spacecraft is due to reach lunar orbit in five days.

It will then spend between three and seven days choosing the right spot before landing in the lunar south pole area.

“For the first time in history, the lunar landing will take place on the lunar south pole. Until now, everyone has been landing in the equatorial zone,” senior Roscosmos official Alexander Blokhin said in a recent interview.

Roscosmos expects the probe to land on the Moon around August 21, a source in the agency told AFP.

– ‘The ambition of our ancestors’ –

The spacecraft, which will remain on the Moon for a year, will be tasked with “taking (samples) and analysing the soil” as well as “conducting long-term scientific research”, the Russian space agency said.

The launch is the first mission in Russia’s new lunar programme, which gets underway at a time when Roscosmos is being deprived of its partnerships with the West amid the conflict with Ukraine.

According to Russian space expert Vitali Iegorov, the mission is the first time that post-Soviet Russia has attempted to place a device on a celestial body.

“The biggest question will be: can it land?” he told AFP, stressing that this mission is “of great importance” for Russia.

President Vladimir Putin has pledged to continue Russia’s space programme despite sanctions, pointing to the USSR’s sending of the first man into space in 1961, at a time of escalating East-West tensions.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/russia-launches-lunar-spacecraft-to-find-water-on-moon-4288327