Will Luna-25 be able to land on the moon on Monday? According to the Russian space agency Roscosmos, which claims to be “currently analyzing the situation”, an incident occurred on Saturday during a pre-landing maneuver of the probe.
“At 2:10 pm, a pulse was emitted to transfer the probe to the pre-moon landing orbit,” the agency first explained in a statement.
“During the operation, an emergency situation arose on board the automatic (lunar) station, which did not allow the maneuver to be carried out with the specified parameters,” he added.
The first Russian lunar probe launched in almost 50 years, Luna-25, was successfully placed in lunar orbit on Wednesday, after lifting off on the night of August 10-11 from the Russian Far East.
A “risky” mission
In its press release, Roscosmos did not indicate whether this incident would delay the probe’s landing north of Bogouslavski crater, at the lunar south pole. He also did not give any further details about the circumstances of this glitch.
Last June, the head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borissov, admitted to President Vladimir Putin that the Luna-25 mission was “risky.”
“The probability of success of such missions is estimated at around 70%,” he said of the probe that weighs almost 800 kilograms.
The mission aims to give new impetus to the Russian space sector, which has struggled for years with funding problems and corruption scandals, and is now isolated by the conflict in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has pledged to continue with the Russian space program despite the difficulties in the sector, taking as an example the USSR sending the first man into space in 1961.
Source: BFM TV
