Russia’s Luna 25 Moon Lander Crashes Into Moon

Russia’s first space mission since 1976 has ended in the most Russian way imaginable by blowing a crater several dozen meters deep in the moon’s surface. Problems with the Luna 25 unmanned moon lander on a year-long mission to the moon’s south pole were first noticed yesterday when a laconic posting on the Telegram channel of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said:

Today at 14:10 according to the Luna-25 flight program, an impulse has been sent to the station to move it into a satellite orbit before landing.

During the operation, an emergency situation occurred at the automatic station. The maneuver could not be performed in accordance with the specified parameters.

Currently, the management group is analyzing current conditions.

Roscosmos notified Russian news agency TASS this morning Eastern Time, that “the Luna-25 satellite changed into an orbit outside of its design and ceased being as a result of a collision with the surface of Moon. ”

RT Telegram has provided more details (translated).

The Russian Moon landing on August 21, was planned to coincide with the BRICS Summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa ). Vladimir Putin opted out of the BRICS Summit in order to save South Africa from serving an arrest warrant issued to them by the International Criminal Court. The scheduled landing date for Luna 25 on August 23 had been thought to be rushed but this has never been confirmed.

It was a political gesture to show that the ICC saga was not a sham. The mission would also boost Russia’s reputation within the BRICS by allowing it to outdo India by 2 full days.

I’m expecting the Russians will use the Red Hand of O’Neills Rule in order to claim they are the first ones to reach the South Pole of the Moon.