Last Updated on August 21, 2023 by HBW2
After 47 years Russia has taken it’s Luna-25 mission, a space programme to land on moon’s south pole. But the mission has failed on 19th August, 2023 due to crash of spacecraft into the lunar surface. At about 14:57 Moscow time, communication with the Luna-25 spacecraft was broken up. The Russian space agency Roscosmos tried to build the connection with the craft many a time, but no signal received after Saturday.
The space agency on Sunday confirmed that the space craft deviated from the actual path and crashed into the lunar surface. The speed of the craft was not properly controlled. The speed was little bit higher than calculated one.
If all the steps were in proper condition then it would land the lunar surface on 21th August, two days before the landing of Chandrayaan-3. But it is very unfortunate that Russia’s aim to land on South pole of moon is in pause. India’s hope is still alive because the Chandrayaan-3 performing it’s ‘deboosting’ process properly. With some corrections ISRO confirmed that it would reach the lunar surface on 23th August, 2023 at 6.04 PM (IST).
Chandrayaan-3 & Luna-25
The scientists are very much fascinated to the south pole of the moon because they believe that the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain frozen water in the rocks that future explorers could transform into air and rocket fuel.
After separation of Propulsion Module in Chandrayaan-3, the Vikram Lander is decreasing it’s distance from the lunar surface gradually by orbit maneuver. We are expecting that the process of soft landing on lunar surface will be precise and India will become the first country to achieve the successful lunar South pole mission.