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Moon

Russia's First Lunar Mission in Decades Crashes Into the Moon (cnn.com) 179

"Russia's first lunar mission in decades has ended in failure with its Luna 25 spacecraft crashing into the moon's surface," reports CNN: The incident, a blow to Russia's space ambitions, happened after communication with the robotic spacecraft was interrupted, a blow to Russia's space ambitions. Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, said it lost touch with Luna 25 on Saturday around 2:57 p.m. Moscow time... According to a "preliminary analysis," Luna-25 "switched to an off-design orbit" before the collision, Roscosmos said. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash... The news comes a day after the spacecraft reported an "emergency situation" as it was trying to enter a pre-landing orbit, according to Roscosmos...

The spacecraft was meant to complete Russia's first lunar landing mission in 47 years. The country's last lunar lander, Luna 24, landed on the surface of the moon on August 18, 1976... Luna 25 was seen as a proving ground for future robotic lunar exploration missions by Roscosmos. Several future Luna spacecraft were slated to make use of the same design. If it had been successful, Luna 25 would have marked a huge stride for the country's civil space program — which some experts say has faced issues for decades — and demonstrate that it could still perform in high-profile, high-stakes missions. "They were having a lot of problems with quality control, corruption, with funding," said Victoria Samson, the Washington office director for Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the peaceful exploration of outer space, during an interview Friday.

News that Russia experienced issues with its spacecraft elicited sympathy that reverberated throughout the space community. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's former head of science, said in a social media post that no one in the industry "wishes bad onto other explorers... We are reminded that landing on any celestial object is anything but easy & straightforward," he said,

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam and TheNameOfNick for sharing the news.
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Russia's First Lunar Mission in Decades Crashes Into the Moon

Comments Filter:
  • by meist3r ( 1061628 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @01:47PM (#63782606)
    Unprecedented aggression /s
  • Past is prologue. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @01:47PM (#63782610)

    "They were having a lot of problems with quality control, corruption, with funding," ...

    Were?

  • We are reminded that landing on any celestial object is anything but easy & straightforward," ...

    Apparently, Russia is failing to learn that sort of lesson in many places.

    • by drnb ( 2434720 )

      We are reminded that landing on any celestial object is anything but easy & straightforward," ...

      Apparently, Russia is failing to learn that sort of lesson in many places.

      Things were easier back when they had Ukrainians, Georgians, Lithuanians, Azerbaijans, etc running the technical agencies of the space program.

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:00PM (#63782634)

    I'll start:

    It wasn't a crash, it was a special lithobraking operation.

  • by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:01PM (#63782636)

    The moon successfully thwarted an attempt by a Russian dictator to invade its territory. Further news at 11.

    • The moon successfully thwarted an attempt by a Russian dictator to invade its territory. Further news at 11.

      On the other hand, this was just another incident of Russia successfully crashing a drone onto something, though I am not aware of any Ukrainian assets currently on the Moon.

  • by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:23PM (#63782674) Journal

    I had no idea there was a Ukrainian pre-school on the Moon. You learn something new every day.

  • detected a Ukrainian pre-school so it accelerated the lander

  • nelson_haw_haw.gif

  • Are probably telling everyone that it landed
  • And getting to the moon in one, usable piece is really hard. It's called rocket science for a reason. I only wish that Putin had been a passenger.
    • MoonGate will be providing tours to the wrecked lander next year. Experience the world's first carbon fiber space vessel!

  • The 23rd of August is the start of the two week lunar day at the south pole. That's why India's probe will touch down then. You need the sun to charge your solar panels so the Russian probe wouldn't have done much till Wednesday anyway but they wanted to beat India. Unfortunately beating India also meant landing in the near dark where choosing a safe landing site was going to be pretty much luck. No Engineer in Russia's space program would have chosen this landing date. They originally planned for the
  • . . . claims credit

  • .. Moon lands on you!

  • I guess Putin won't be able to annex the moon this month. He'll probably claim there are space Nazis there and that the moon was never actually independent from mother Russia, but he'll not be annexing it...

  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @09:19AM (#63785000) Journal
    Russia has been falling apart since converting from authoritarian communist nation into a authoritarian âoecapitalist âoe nation.

    sadly, Putin continues to drive Russia into the ground.
    • Russia has been falling apart since converting from authoritarian communist nation into a authoritarian âoecapitalist âoe nation.

      sadly, Putin continues to drive Russia into the ground.

      The USSR was essentially a Russian empire.

      After the USSR collapsed Russia and the most heavily Russified countries tended to let the same people get back in charge and ended up back under authoritarian rule.

      Countries with more of their identity put their own people in charge and tended to turn democratic.

      Ukraine had been half-Russified, so pre-2014 there were still a lot of people in the Eastern half looking back on the USSR days as "us being a superpower", not "us being ruled by Russians".

      Post-2014, now al

  • The Russian wessel reached the surface of the moon first!

In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and make it better.

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