Explained | What the fate of Luna 25 means for Russia Premium

Luna 25 failed in its mission to soft-land near the moon’s south pole, due to a technical glitch. The mission was part of Russia's attempt to demonstrate its economy's resilience and to ensure access to the moon's surface. Despite speculation, the mission was not in a race with Chandrayaan 3. Roscosmos lost contact with Luna 25 as it attempted to modify its orbit, and sanctions imposed by Western countries limited their access to satellite tracking systems.

The story so far: On August 11, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, launched its Luna 25 spacecraft onboard a Soyuz 2 rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. Luna 25 consisted of a lander and its mission was to soft-land near the moon’s south pole, and there study the optical, physical, and chemical properties of moondust and moon soil, and the atmosphere.

But on August 20, Roscosmos issued a statement stating that Luna 25 had suffered a glitch and crashed on the moon’s surface the previous day, ending the mission in a failure. While the event attested to the various challenges of autonomously landing a robotic instrument on the moon, the fate of Luna 25 also speaks to more than technical issues.

The Luna 25 mission has technically been in the works for more than two decades. In the first decade or so, it was called Luna-Glob; the name was changed later to make the mission a part of the Luna series, the last edition of which, Luna 24, was launched in 1976. In its statement after Luna 25 failed, Roscosmos said one of the reasons to launch the mission was to “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface” – an allusion to the growing importance of the moon as a spaceflight destination and its importance as one of the sites of contest between the U.S. and China.

While Russia and China are together leading the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), versus the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, Russia has not executed a successful interplanetary mission in 34 years. Some experts have also said that Russia intended Luna 25 as president Vladimir Putin’s demonstration that the country’s economy – including the spaceflight sector – haven’t buckled under the weight of international sanctions following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2021.

Contrary to population perception, too many details are misaligned to expect that Luna 25 and Chandrayaan 3, or Roscosmos and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), were in a race. Both missions launched in a similar timeframe and were expected to attempt a soft-landing on the moon within days of each other.

However, these mission parameters are determined by the launch vehicle, the mass of the spacecraft, the earth-moon trajectory, and availability of sunlight at a point on the moon (to power solar panels).

In addition, while Chandrayaan 3 has been in development since 2019, Roscosmos was working on Luna 25 since the early 2010s, and couldn’t have anticipated the fate of Chandrayaan 2. Both missions also suffered unpredictable delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.