The Ministry of Education and Science reported on the progress of the investigation related to the crash of the Russian Luna-25 spacecraft. A crater was discovered, formed by its fall and collision with the Moon's surface. This helped to obtain some new data.
The find was made by employees of the Laboratory of Comparative Planetology of the GEOKHI RAS, together with colleagues from IDG RAS and NPO Lavochkin, in images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter automatic station.
The photo shows that the new crater is located on the inner slope of a larger crater with a diameter of about 40 km. According to NPO Lavochkin, the Luna-25 landing unit had a mass of 1605 kg when fueled. The spacecraft used some of its fuel before the impact, and according to expert estimates, its mass decreased to 600–1000 kg. According to the authors' calculations, the impact occurred at an angle of 45 degrees, and the maximum speed at impact was 1.7 km/s.
Luna-25
In 2023, Luna-25 became the first domestic spacecraft in almost fifty years to be sent from Russia to the Moon to study this satellite of the Earth.
The Luna-25 automatic station crashed without ever landing. A special commission investigated the incident. According to its results, it became known that the accident was caused by a new domestic angular velocity measurement unit "Bius-L," which is part of the station's onboard control system.
The device was designed at the Scientific and Production Center for Automation and Instrument Engineering named after Academician N. A. Pilyugin (NPTSAP) from completely Russian parts. It was responsible for determining the orientation of the station in space and its speed. Shortly before landing, the Bius-L accelerometer units failed due to a possible "entry into one data array of commands with different priorities for their execution by the device".
But Luna-25 still managed to contribute to science. It took pictures from space and took measurements of the radiation background. Also, after entering the orbit of an artificial satellite of the Moon, the station photographed the southern polar Zeeman crater on the far side of the Moon, measured the потоки gamma rays and neutrons from the surface of the Moon, and obtained parameters of the near-lunar space plasma and gas-dust exosphere in near-lunar orbit.
It is already known that Roscosmos intends to send two spacecraft to the Moon as part of the development of the Earth's satellite. The landing site for them will be determined by Luna-26, which is scheduled to launch in 2027. Luna-27a and Luna-27b will be assembled simultaneously, but launched separately. They will back each other up if something goes wrong, and the lunar program will not be delayed, as happened now.
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