Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into moon
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
We still have India's Chandrayaan-3 due to attempt to land 23rd August, and similarly on the Moon's South pole.
Russia's mission is still significant progress they haven't made it out of Earth orbit since the Soviet era and have had several attempts land in oceans.
Landing on celestial bodies is hard, looks like only China has ever managed a first attempt Chang'e 3 programme did so.[0]
Direct observation of water-ice on the Moon's poles will be huge for future manned mission planning. This shouldn't be understated.
Indeed. It actually took the Soviet Union 12 attempts to land on the moon in the original Luna program. That actually seems excessive even for the Soviet above-average failure rate.
Lunokhod 1 (Russian: Луноход-1 ("Moonwalker 1"), also known as Аппарат 8ЕЛ № 203 ("Device 8EL No. 203") was the first of two robotic lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program.
The Luna 17 spacecraft carried Lunokhod 1 to the Moon in 1970.
Lunokhod 1 was the first remote-controlled robot "rover" to freely move across the surface of an astronomical object beyond the Earth.
It was also the first wheeled craft on another celestial body.
Lunokhod 0 (No.201), the previous and first attempt to do so, launched in February 1969 but failed to reach orbit.
Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency) didn't do any of those. Those were all accomplished by the Soviet Space Program, which had major centers across the Union, and ceased to exist after the USSR broke up. Roscosmos was created in 1992, and every one of their lunar and interplanetary missions has resulted in failure before even reaching their destinations.
Still, I love the phrasing of the Roscosmos quote:
> "The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon"
"The apparatus survived collision with the surface of Luna and it's now an extant object sitting on the southern landmass of the Earth's only natural satellite."
I'd wish.
At least that turn of phrase makes it sound like the death was quick and instant.