8/20/23

By Aditi Jha

Russia's first moon mission in 47 years has failed, with their space corporation, Roscosmos, stating that their Luna-25 (also called the Luna-Glob-Lander) spacecraft "moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon." It's Russia's first lunar mission since Luna-24 on August 18th, 1976, during the Soviet Union. Only three governments were able to successfully land on the moon; the Soviet Union, the US, and China. Russia's space power was grandest at the height of the Cold War, when Moscow launched the Sputnik 1 satellite to orbit the Earth and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin traveled into space in 1961. Roscosmos stated that their goal was to depict Russia as "a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon" and "ensure Russia's guaranteed access to the moon's surface." The spacecraft's goal was to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday. The south pole is significant because it's one of the least explored areas of the moon, an area that could contain frozen water and precious elements in the shadowy polar craters that are hidden from the sun. The frozen water in the rocks could be turned into air and rocket fuel by future explorers. Roscosmos said that it lost contact with the Luna-25 spacecraft on Saturday after the spacecraft reported an "abnormal situation." An Indian spacecraft, the Chandrayaan-3, launched July 14th, was its main competitor in the fight to reach the south pole. India's last attempt to reach the south pole in 2019 ended when their Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft crashed into the moon. The Chandrayaan-3 is predicted to land on the south pole this week on August 23rd. According to CNN, the Chandrayaan-3 has a lander, propulsion module and rover, which is something that Russia did not have. Both spacecrafts were expected to reach the south pole by August 21 through the 23rd. Invading Ukraine also played a part in making the mission a lot more difficult. Roscosmos and the European Space Agency were going to partner on Luna-25, as well as Luna-26, Luna-27, and the ExoMars rover. That partnership ended in April 2022 as the ESA started to "discontinue cooperative activities with Russia." There also have been sanctions put on Russia by the US since it invaded Ukraine, making it harder for Russia to improve their space program with Western technology. Russia's economy is already fighting against both sanctions and the cost of an enormous land war. A special inter-departmental commission was made to investigate the crash of Luna-25, which was given 26 seconds of coverage on Russian state television, right after spending 4 minutes covering a Russian professional pilot holiday. NASA's former head of science, Thomas Zurbuchen, said on X (formerly known as Twitter) that nobody "wishes bad onto other explorers. We are reminded that landing on any celestial object is anything but easy & straightforward. Just because others managed to do it decades ago, does not guarantee success today." Landing on the moon is definitely extremely difficult. The editor with the non-profit space exploration organization, the Planetary Society, Jason Davis, told NPR that "The moon is kind of a unique challenge because it has no atmosphere." There's no way to slow down using a parachute. You have to slow down using thrusters, which have to fire at the perfect moment. "You have to make a lot of sophisticated calculations as you come in for landing to fire those thrusters just right," said Davis. "There's not a lot of margin for error." That's what happened with the Chandrayaan-2 crash. Davis predicts that Chandrayaan-3 is more likely to succeed. 

That's the news for today! Stay safe!