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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[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Russians have a bunch of crashed spacecraft on Mars and no successful Mars landings.

[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago

The Soviets were also the only ones to successfully put a lander on Venus, and accomplished this in the 70s. They were a powerhouse when it came to unmanned missions: even with more primative control systems they had to work with.

Of course with the fall of the USSR all the smart people behind those successes could leave, so ...