The unmanned craft was due to make a soft landing on the Moon's south pole, but failed after encountering issues as it moved into its pre-landing orbit.

It was Russia's first Moon mission in almost 50 years.

The spacecraft was scheduled to land on Monday to explore a part of the Moon which scientists think could hold frozen water and precious elements.

Roskosmos, Russia's state space corporation, said it lost contact with the Luna-25 shortly after running into difficulties.

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[–] Afrazzle@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My unsubstantiated speculation is that it's because of exactly what who you're replying to said. It's been a number of years since roscosmos has had a successful mission to another celestial body, so I think this was supposed to be a verification that they still had this capability to enable a lunar base program (as another reply mentioned).

[–] sab@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Yes, it seems likely this is an element as well - and if that's the motivation performing an uncontrolled landing must sting a bit extra, even if they were aiming to pull off something more challenging than in '76.