Roscosmos Reveals The Cause Of Russia's Luna-25 Aircraft Crashing The Moon

Luna-25 failed to land smoothly on the Moon. (photo: dock. Roscosmos)

JAKARTA - Russia failed to get a historic day after Luna-25 failed to seamlessly land on the Moon. It is claimed that the spacecraft suffered a technical error.

Director General of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) Yury Borisov, blamed the decades' pause in lunar exploration in the country as the cause of the Luna-25 accident.

He explained that the spacecraft engine was turned on at the weekend to put it into pre-landing orbit but was not turned off properly, so Luna-25 fell to the Moon.

"It wasn't the planned 84 seconds, but it worked for 127 seconds. This is the main reason for this emergency," Borisov told Russia's government news channel, Russia 24.

Roscosmos made contact with Luna-25 until Saturday at 14:57 local time, when communication was cut off, the spacecraft had entered an open lunar orbit and crashed to its surface.

The negative experience in stopping the lunar program for nearly 50 years is the main reason for the failure. That would be the worst decision (for Russia to end the program now)," Borisov said.

After the accident, Borisov said the mission to the Moon was about ensuring long-term defense capabilities and technological sovereignty.

"The race to develop lunar natural resources has begun. In the future, the Moon will be the ideal platform for space exploration," Borisov said, quoted by ABC News, Tuesday, August 22.

Previously reported, Luna-25 failed while trying to land on the Moon. If the spacecraft succeeds, it will be the first to land at the Moon's south pole and as the first Russian mission in nearly 50 years.

However, the downing of the Luna-25 was a crushing blow for Roscosmos, who was indeed racing to beat India's Chandrayaan-3 mission to land on the Moon.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), said on its official X account, Chandrayaan-3 will land on the Moon on August 23.

Just like Luna-25, Chandrayaan-3 plans to land at the Moon's south pole, an area covered in ice.

By analyzing ice, further research will be created on how water appears on the surface of Earth's natural satellite and whether this process is related to the emergence of water on Earth.