Luna 25 could not land on the Moon as planned, most likely because the controller on board could not turn off the engine in time.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed a crater possibly left by Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft on August 19. Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University
Luna 25, Russia's first lander to reach the Moon in nearly 50 years, crashed into the celestial body on August 19. The crash occurred during a course correction in preparation for an attempt to land near the lunar south pole two days later. The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, announced the suspected cause shortly after the incident: Luna-25's engines fired for 127 seconds instead of the expected 84 seconds.
Experts have now detailed the possible cause of the failure: The ship's controller failed to shut down the engine because it did not receive the necessary data from one of the accelerometers (devices used to detect and measure movement).
"The accelerometer did not work, possibly due to the input of a data chain consisting of commands with different execution priorities. This did not allow recording the moment of reaching the required speed and promptly shutting down the spacecraft's propulsion system," Roscosmos wrote on Telegram on October 3.
Luna 25 was designed to restart Russia's lunar exploration program, and the failure will not change that vision, according to experts at Roscosmos and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia aims to launch its next three spacecraft - Luna 26, 27 and 28 - in 2027, 2028 and 2030 or later, respectively. But the schedule could be accelerated after the Luna 25 failure, Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov said at the 2023 International Astronautical Congress in Azerbaijan from October 2 to 6.
Luna 25 had aimed to be the first spacecraft to land on the Moon's south pole, which is believed to contain a lot of water ice. However, the crash on August 19 forced it to cede that title to India's Chandrayaan-3. Chandrayaan-3 landed the Vikram lander and Pragyan robot near the south pole on August 23, just four days after Luna 25's failure. This success made India the fourth country to have a successful vehicle landing on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
Thu Thao (According to Space )
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