Russia identifies cause of failed Moon landing – 10/03/2023 – Science
[ad_1]
Russia on Tuesday blamed the malfunction of an onboard control unit for the crash of its landing module on the Moon in August. Additionally, the country said it may accelerate the schedule for two other missions.
Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years failed on August 19 with the crash of its Luna-25 spacecraft, ending Moscow’s hopes of overtaking India to the Moon’s unexplored south pole. An Indian spacecraft landed there shortly after, on August 23rd.
State space agency Roscosmos said the control unit malfunctioned by failing to turn off the propulsion system, which fired one and a half times longer than necessary as the spacecraft headed for the moon.
Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov said an investigative commission had completed its examination of what went wrong and was preparing a report for the government.
He stated that Russia was determined to move forward with its Moon exploration program. “In addition, we are considering the possibility of bringing forward the Luna-26 and Luna-27 missions to obtain the results we need as quickly as possible. “
He did not reveal, however, when these missions could be carried out.
Russia has previously said that Luna-26 will be an orbital mission and Luna-27 will be a lander with a drilling platform. Russia and other countries are interested in establishing the extent of frozen water near the Moon’s south pole that could support human presence in the future.
According to Roscosmos, its preliminary analysis of the August accident showed that, “when emitting a corrective pulse to transfer the spacecraft from a circular lunar orbit to an elliptical pre-landing orbit, Luna-25’s propulsion system operated for 127 seconds instead of the planned 84 seconds.
The most likely cause was the malfunction of the onboard control system in the spacecraft’s angular velocity measurement unit due to incorrect data commands. As a result, the propulsion system was not shut down when necessary.
The Kremlin downplayed the mission’s failure, saying Russia would continue to pursue ambitious plans in space.
[ad_2]
Source link
