Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years failed when its Luna-25 spacecraft spun out of control and crash-landed on the Moon on Saturday. Hours after Russia’s space agency confirmed the end of its lunar mission, Chris Hadfield, a retired Canadian astronaut, on Sunday expressed his disappointment at the failure of the Luna-25 spacecraft but said that now all eyes are now on India and ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission.
“So disappointing for all the scientists, engineers and explorers to see Luna 25 crash. All eyes now on India, attempting south Moon landing in 3 days. @isro,” Hadfield wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Roskosmos, Russia’s official space corporation, said in a statement that it lost touch with the craft on Saturday at 11:57 GMT due to a glitch as the craft was shoved into pre-landing orbit. A soft landing had been planned for Monday. “The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon,” Roskosmos said in a statement.
Russia’s Luna-25 was in a race with India’s Chandrayaan-3 to first land on the Moon’s south pole on August 23.
“India’s Chandrayaan-3 is set to land on the moon on August 23,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on X. In the wee hours of Sunday, ISRO announced it had successfully reduced the orbit of Chandrayaan-3 mission’s lander module, and it was now expected to touch down on the surface of the Moon at 18:04 hours on August 23.
The space agency said the lander module would undergo internal checks ahead of the planned soft landing. The lander module (LM), comprising the lander ‘Vikram’ and rover ‘Pragyan’, is expected to touch down on the lunar surface on Wednesday, August 23 at 18.04 hours(6:04 PM), ISRO said.
The module would go through internal inspections before waiting for the morning at the specified landing place. “The powered descent is expected to commence on August 23, 2023, around 1745 hrs IST,” ISRO said in a post on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) in the early hours of Sunday.
The success of Chandrayaan-3 would be a major achievement for India and a boost for the country’s space program. It would also be a significant step forward for international cooperation in space exploration.
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