On August 10, 2023 Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, launched a moon lander called Luna 25 on top of their Soyuz 2.1b rocket. So, that way the journey of Luna 25 space probe started towards the moon. Luna 25 was supposed to land on the far side of the moon, near south pole, at the Boguslawsky crater.
The Luna 25 was scheduled to make a soft landing on the moon on August 21, 2023. However, Luna 25 crash landed on the moon at 11:57 GMT on August 20, 2023. It was going through different maneuvers to bring it in correct orbit before performing the final landing sequence. However, it got out of control and gone on the path where finally it crash landed on the moon.
Luna 25 moon lander was launched exactly 47 years after the Luna 24 moon mission of Russia. Luna 24 was launched on August 9, 1976. Unlike Luna 25, Luna 24 was actually very successful mission. It not only landed on the moon successfully but also it collected the samples of soil from the moon. Samples were put in a capsule and were returned back to the earth by the Luna 24 rover.
However, Russia was trying something different this time, they were trying to land on the far side of the moon, near south pole. About 30 KG payload was carried by Luna 25. All of this 30 Kilograms payload consisted of scientific equipment, which was to be used to run different experiments on the Lunar soil and the Lunar atmosphere. If you are interested, in a previous post about Luna 25, we have listed the details of scientific equipment aboard Luna 25, so you can go there and check.
Unfortunately, the journey of Luna 25 to the far side of moon ended with this recent crash. Also Russia, which was in race with other nations to land on far side of moon, will need to make another attempt. Meanwhile, the chandrayaan 3, the Indian space probe continues its journey to the moon. Chandrayaan 3 started its journey much earlier on July 14 and took a longer route to the moon as compared to Luna 25. Chandrayaan 3 of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is expected to land on the far side of moon, near south pole on August 23, 2023. After Luna 25 crash landed into the moon, all eyes are now on ISRO’s Chandrayaan 3 to see that how its journey ends.