LUNA-25, Russia’s first lunar mission in nearly 50 years, ended prematurely when the ship hit the surface of our satellite. To say they didn’t have to spare personal lives because it wasn’t a manned mission.

Russia’s state space corporation Roskomos confirmed the accident occurred after a fuel failure prevented the ship (a robotic probe) from performing its planned landing maneuvers and brought it into “unpredictable track” to end up impacting the surface of the moon.

LUNA-25 and the new race for the Moon

He the south pole of the moon it has become the focus of the latest space race in which Earth’s world powers have embarked. And there are more players now than in the 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Cold War.

LUNA-25 was a Russian project to reach the polar region first, Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years. The probe took off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on August 10 aboard the Soyuz 2.1ba rocket and was supposed to land on the Moon on Sunday. The mission called for exploration of the area’s natural resources, as it is believed to contain abundant frozen water that will provide a critical ingredient for astronauts’ survival and an ingredient used in the production of rocket fuel that will be used for future missions to Mars. .

There is a battle going on Gathering resources and positioning at the Moon’s South Pole. And the fear of some power trying to claim the territory if they are the first to establish a base in the region. Doing so could potentially deprive other nations of their ability to develop a human presence or gain access to critical resources needed for more advanced space exploration.

The LUNA-25 accident may allow India to be the first to reach the South Pole with the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft. It is the Asian country’s third successful flyby of the moon and it hopes to land on the moon this week, Wednesday, August 23.

The United States is leading the Artemis I mission, the first of an international space exploration program as ambitious as it is expensive, with the ultimate goal of establishing a permanent presence on a satellite and serving as a launch pad for the arrival of humans on Mars. This project is the most ambitious, and NASA has partners such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), the Space Agency ASA) and the Mexican Space Agency (AEM), in addition also includes American trading companies.

As for Russia, the LUNA-25 fiasco calls into question the country’s current and future space exploration capacity due to Putin’s war against Ukraine, the vast amount of money spent and Western sanctions. Targets listed “confirm that Russia is capable of delivering cargo to the moon” was not achieved and contrasts with the historic Luna-2 mission of 1959.