Luna-25 crashed into the Moon during a pre-landing orbit maneuver in August 2023. Roscosmos later said the most likely cause was a failure in the onboard control system: it did not receive the right accelerometer data, so the engine shutoff happened too late and the spacecraft hit the lunar surface.

What went wrong

  • The probe was preparing for landing near the Moon’s south pole.
  • Its thrusters fired longer than planned, which pushed it into an unintended orbit.
  • Communication was then lost, and the mission was declared failed.

Why it mattered

Luna-25 was Russia’s first lunar mission in nearly 50 years, so the crash was a major setback for Roscosmos and its future Moon plans. The failure also intensified attention on the race to the Moon’s south pole, where India’s Chandrayaan-3 landed successfully days later.

Later findings

In October 2023, Roscosmos said the crash was tied to an abnormal operation in the probe’s onboard control system, linked to the accelerometer unit and command handling. That explanation matched earlier reports that the engine burn lasted 127 seconds instead of the planned 84 seconds.

In one line

Luna-25 didn’t land because a control-system failure caused a bad engine burn, sending it into the Moon’s surface.