According to reports, the crash of the Russian spacecraft left a 10-meter-wide crater.
According to Moscow’s space agency, NASA has released pictures allegedly depicting the impact site of Russia’s Luna 25 Moon mission, which last month crashed on the moon’s surface due to an alleged technical issue.
The high-resolution images, which were first released on Thursday, were taken last week by imaging systems on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a robotic spacecraft in the Moon’s orbit.
The NASA scientists identified the potential impact spot along the inner rim of the Pontecoulant G crater and compared its location to prior images using information provided by Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. The researchers think they have located the Luna 25 probe’s last resting place, a 10 metre wide impact crater that looks to have formed.
According to NASA, this new crater is more likely to be from the Luna-25 mission than a natural impactor because it is so close to the mission’s projected impact position.
According to Roscosmos, the engine malfunction that prevented the Russian plane from touching down in late August prompted an investigation.
Roscosmos director Yury Borisov said, “Unfortunately, the engine shutdown did not happen normally, in accordance with the sequence diagram, but based on a time stamp, and it ran for 127 seconds instead of the planned 84 seconds.”
Borisov pointed out that despite the mission’s failure, Roscosmos engineers learned a lot while creating Luna-25. The project team “will, of course, take into account all the mistakes that were made during this mission,” he stated, before expressing optimism for “the future missions of Luna-26, 27, and 28.”
Luna-25 was designed to touch down close to the moon’s south pole, which is noted for its rough terrain. have of the earlier lunar lander missions carried out by different countries have made their landings in equatorial areas.
High-resolution images of the Moon were returned by the Russian spacecraft after it successfully entered lunar orbit. On August 21, the mission was supposed to make an attempt at landing.
