Russian spacecraft Luna-25 crashed into the Moon's surface

The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) announced that the Russian spacecraft Luna-25 crashed into the surface of the Moon and broke apart. In a written statement, Roscosmos said that communication with Luna-25 was lost yesterday. The statement conveyed that analyzes revealed deviations in the calculations of some parameters, and said, “For this reason, the spacecraft entered an uncalculated orbit and crashed into the surface of the Moon and broke apart.” The statement announced that a special commission will investigate the causes of the accident. Luna-25 was launched on August 11 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, 5,500 kilometers east of Moscow, aboard a Soyuz 2.1b rocket. The first spacecraft sent to the Moon by Russia since 1976, Luna-25 was planned to conduct scientific research by soft-landing on the Moon’s surface.