Luna-25 Spacecraft Crashes Into the Moon

On Sunday, Russia's State Space Corporation (Roscosmos) informed that Luna-25 module has crashed into the moon after it went into an unplanned orbit.

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"At around 14:57 Moscow time, the connection with the automatic lunar probe was lost," Roscosmos said.

"Preliminary analysis results show that a deviation between the actual and calculated parameters of the propulsion maneuver led the Luna-25 spacecraft to enter an undesignated orbit and it ceased to exist following a collision with the surface of the Moon," it added.

According to Roscosmos, a specially formed interdepartmental commission will investigate the cause of the crash.

The Luna-25 mission, the first Russian spacecraft in more than four decades, headed to the moon on Friday at 02:11 Moscow time on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from Vostochny Cosmodrome, a Russian spaceport located in the Amur Oblast in the country's Far East.

During its space mission, Luna-25 only had time to send back several images of the lunar surface, among which were photos of the 184-kilometre-diameter Zeeman crater.

The Russian probe also made some measurements and scientific experiments and recorded the impact of a micrometeorite against the Moon.