Russian probe undergoes emergency before landing on the Moon – 08/19/2023 – Science

The Russian space agency Roscosmos detected an “emergency situation” during a maneuver before the moon landing of the Russian probe Luna-25, as indicated in a statement this Saturday (19).

“At 2:10 p.m., an impulse was issued to transfer the probe into pre-landing orbit on the Moon,” the agency explained. “During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the lunar automatic station, which prevented the maneuver from being carried out with the specified parameters,” he added.

Luna-25, the first lunar probe launched by Russia in almost half a century, took off on August 11 from a base in the country’s Far East and successfully entered Earth’s satellite orbit on Wednesday (16).

The Roscosmos statement does not indicate whether the “emergency situation” will force the postponement of the landing, scheduled for Monday (21), in the Boguslawski crater, at the lunar south pole. The text also does not offer details about the technical problem detected.

Roscosmos director Yuri Borisov admitted in June to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Luna-25 mission was “risky”. “Worldwide, the probability of success for this type of mission is estimated at around 70%,” he declared.

With the probe, which weighs about 800 kilograms, the Russian space agency plans a one-year mission to collect samples and analyze lunar soil.

The mission seeks to give new impetus to the Russian space sector, which struggles to innovate, suffers from a lack of funding and has been plagued by corruption scandals, as well as being isolated by the conflict in Ukraine.

Putin has vowed to continue with the space program despite Western sanctions and cited as an example the moment when the Soviet Union sent the first man into space in 1961, during the Cold War.