Russia reported an “abnormal situation” Saturday on its moon-bound Luna-25 spacecraft, which launched earlier this month
Russia reported an “abnormal situation” Saturday on its moon-bound Luna-25 spacecraft, which launched earlier this month.
The country’s space agency, Roscosmos, said the spacecraft ran into unspecified trouble while trying to enter a pre-landing orbit, and that its specialists were analyzing the situation.
“During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” Roscosmos said in a Telegram post.
Roscosmos did not specify whether the incident will prevent Luna-25 from making a landing.
The spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, racing to land on Earth’s satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft. The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.
