Russia's First Lunar Exploration Mission in 47 Years Fails

Russia's state space agency announced that the Luna-25 spacecraft crashed on Sunday, August 20, due to a technical failure during its landing preparations and exploded upon impact with the lunar surface. Reuters reports that this failure highlights the decline of Russia's space program following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which competed with the United States in space programs during the Cold War. The agency also stated that a special commission has been formed to investigate the reasons for this failure. Moscow first launched Sputnik 1 into Earth's orbit in 1957, and in 1961, Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space. According to the report, Moscow's failure in its lunar exploration program comes at a time when Russia's $2 trillion economy is facing its deepest crisis in decades, pressured by Western sanctions and the invasion of Ukraine, described as the largest land war in Europe since World War II. Russian state television reported the explosion of Luna-25 after eight other minor news items, dedicating only 26 seconds to it. Russia aims to compete in lunar exploration programs with India, whose Chandrayaan-3 lander is set to land on the Moon's south pole this week, and more importantly, with China and the United States. However, Russian scientists have repeatedly complained that the country's space program is weakened by poor management eager for unrealistic space projects and plagued by corruption. The Russian probe encountered a technical problem while approaching the lunar surface.