https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66562629
Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon after spinning into an uncontrolled orbit, officials say.
The unmanned craft was due to make a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole, but failed after encountering issues as it moved into its pre-landing orbit.
It was Russia’s first Moon mission in almost 50 years.
Russia’s Luna-25 smashes into moon in failure
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russias-luna-25-smashes-into-moon-in-failure/ar-AA1fvOIH
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years failed after its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and smashed into moon.
Russia’s state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft shortly after a problem occurred as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit on Saturday.
“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 first moon mission in decades fails after spacecraft collides with surface
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/world/luna-25-spacecraft-moon-collision-intl/index.html
Russia’s first moon mission in decades has ended in failure after the Luna-25 spacecraft collided with the Moon’s surface.
The incident happened after communication with the spacecraft was interrupted, a blow to Russia’s space ambitions.
Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said it lost communication with Luna-25 on Saturday around 2:57pm Moscow time.
“The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and get into contact with it did not yield any results,” it said.
Well… that sucks.
So much for the capabilities of the mighty Russian space program.