Russia’s Luna-25 Faces ‘Emergency Situation’ During Pre-moon Landing Manoeuvre – News18

Russian Moon Mission Luna-25 on Saturday reported a technical glitch ahead of its pre-moon landing phase, Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

“During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the carrying out of the manoeuvre within the specified conditions,” Roscosmos said in a statement.

“Thrust was released to transfer the probe onto the pre-landing orbit,” it added.

The ’emergency’ was detected prior to the transition of the Luna-25 satellite to a pre-landing orbit with the specified parameters, the Russian space agency added.

However, Roscosmos did not clarify if the glitch would have any impact on the timing and landing, which was set to take place on Monday, north of the Boguslawsky crater on the lunar south pole.

Reportedly, space agency chief Yuri Borisov in June told President Vladimir Putin that such missions were “risky”, with an estimated success probability of around 70 per cent.

The Luna-25 lander, which is Russia’s first such mission in almost 50 years, was on Wednesday successfully placed in the Moon’s orbit. It was launched from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome.

The Russian spacecraft was scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday. The moon’s south pole is the unchartered part of the moon which scientists think may hold frozen water and precious elements.

The Russian Moon Mission was launched in alignment with India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission which plans to be the first to land on the Moon’s south pole. The proximity and the possibility of an overlap of their landing dates — August 21-23 for Luna-25 and August 23-24 for Chandrayaan-3 — has intensified global attention.

(With inputs from AFP/ Reuters)