Russia Crashes On Moon In Race With India

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Russia on Sunday appeared to lose the race to be the first to successfully land on the Moon’s south pole after its unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the planet.

Russia’s first Moon mission in almost 50 years was meant to signal that it is still a significant player in space despite Western sanctions over Moscow’s war back on Earth in Ukraine.

Yet the crash confirmed Sunday by Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos came as India was on its way to the Moon’s south pole.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was due to land there in the coming days and send a rover to explore the rocks and craters, gathering data and images to send back to Earth.

The mission’s organizers claim parts of the Moon’s south pole remain permanently in shadow, making finding water possible.

While realizing that India may now write history instead of Russia, the Indian space agency Isro described the Luna-25 crash as “unfortunate.”

“Every space mission is very risky and highly technical. It’s unfortunate that Luna-25 has crashed,” it added in published remarks.

INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED

Roscosmos said preliminary findings showed that the Russian 800-kilogram lander had “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.”

The agency announced that a special commission would investigate the crash.

Commentators said that losing Luna-25 is a major setback to Roscosmos as the Russian civilian space program has declined for several years.

With a war in Ukraine raging and calls to modernize the army, state funding had been increasingly directed toward Russia’s military away from space research.

The Moon crash is also a setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seeks closer ties with Asian countries such as China, another ambitious space-searching nation.

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