The unmanned craft was due to make a soft landing on the Moon's south pole.

Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon after spinning into an uncontrolled orbit, officials say.

The unmanned craft was due to make a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole, but failed after encountering issues as it moved into its pre-landing orbit.

It was Russia’s first Moon mission in almost 50 years.

The spacecraft was scheduled to land on Monday to explore a part of the Moon which scientists think could hold frozen water and precious elements.

Roskosmos, Russia’s state space corporation, said it lost contact with the Luna-25 shortly after running into difficulties.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 year ago

      The quality of Russian science is irrelevant when 99% of funding goes into building new palaces and buying yachts.

      • TheBlue22@lemmy.world
        4·
        1 year ago

        Don’t forget about brain drain.

        The majority of Russians with any braincells (or money) have already left the country.

        • Aux@lemmy.world
          21·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, brain drain is real. Every Russian I know from IT sphere has left. Many left after 2014 , everyone else left in 2022. Every person with a brain doesn’t want to associate with the regime in any way and doesn’t want to suffer.

    • uis@lemmy.world
      41·
      1 year ago

      It’s roskosmos being roskosmos. I’m surprised it didn’t explode mid-air.

      • lud@lemm.ee
        2·
        1 year ago

        Roskosmos is usually pretty competent.

        I mean, they helped build the ISS (and a lot more) and have sent a lot people up there for YEARS without any fatalities.

        ^^^and ^^^no ^^^I ^^^dont’t ^^^like ^^^Russia.

        • uis@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 year ago

          Engieneers are mostly competent(even with salary of about 50k ₽/mo or 550$/mo), but managment… Incompetent managmemt is best you can hope, because Rogozin is much worse.

          Production and quality control is so terrible that “accidentaly” much cheaper solder may be used, that later will cause A HOLE in ISS.

          Also this particular mission was rushed. “Won’t be ready for another year? Launch now!”

          • lud@lemm.ee
            1·
            1 year ago

            “Won’t be ready for another year? Launch now!”

            Ah, the EA strategy, a true classic!

          • SuddenDownpour@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            You are never going to have competetent management when they’re forced to follow unrealistic goals due to political reasons.