Reuters on August 20 quoted an announcement from Russia's Roscosmos Space Agency saying that the Luna-25 probe lost control and crashed into the moon.
The rocket carrying the Luna-25 spacecraft was launched on August 11.
Roscosmos said it lost contact with the Luna-25 spacecraft shortly after an emergency occurred as the spacecraft entered pre-landing orbit on August 19.
"The machine moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist after a collision with the lunar surface," Roscosmos announced.
Luna-25 was Russia's first post-Soviet lunar landing mission. Luna-24 landed on the Moon on August 18, 1976.
The Luna-25 spacecraft was launched by a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Vostochny space center on August 11. The spacecraft underwent two orbital adjustments on August 12 and 14. On August 16, the spacecraft entered lunar orbit.
Russian officials had previously planned for Luna-25 to land on the moon’s south pole on August 21, making it the first country to do so. India launched its Chandrayaan-3 probe on July 14 for a similar mission but is scheduled to land on August 23.
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