Russia's first lunar mission in nearly 50 years encountered an "emergency situation" during a maneuver on August 19, casting doubt on its planned landing. The Luna-25 spacecraft, launched on August 10, was attempting a maneuver to establish a "pre-landing" orbit around the moon. Russia might have lost contact with Luna-25, India could do historical landing first
The maneuver faced issues that prevented it from being executed as intended, according to a statement by Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Details about the nature of the problem and the maneuver itself were not disclosed. The incident's impact on the scheduled August 21 landing remained uncertain.
The Luna-25 mission, which marks Russia's return to lunar exploration since the 1976 Luna-24 sample return mission, has faced delays due to technical challenges and resource limitations.
Originally, the mission was set to collaborate with the European Space Agency (ESA) for testing a navigation camera system, but this partnership was severed following the fallout from Russia's actions in Ukraine.
This lunar exploration phase also includes two other missions in August. India's Chandrayaan-3, launched in July, entered lunar orbit in early August and is poised for a south polar region landing attempt on August 23. Japan's JAXA is planning to launch the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on August 25, along with the XRISM X-ray astronomy observatory.
SLIM will showcase precision landing technologies and is expected to attempt a landing near the Shioli crater in four to six months after launch.