The fate of Russia’s failed Luna 25 Moon landing mission has been confirmed after NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) found a new impact crater at the estimated position of the lander’s crash shortly before its attempted landing.

On August 19, 2023, Russia’s hopes of success for its first Moon mission in 47 years were dashed when a maneuver to place the lander into a pre-landing orbit went disastrously wrong. A thruster burn meant to last only 84 seconds went on for 127, sending it on a collision course with the lunar surface. The Russian space agency Roscosmos lost radio contact with Luna 25 47 minutes after the thruster burn began and attempts to reacquire the spacecraft failed, strongly indicating that the lander had been destroyed.

NASA

According to NASA, on August 21 Roscosmos published its estimate of where the lander went down, and on August 22 NASA commanded the LRO to turn on its LRO Camera (LROC) to investigate as its orbit took it over the crash site. Beginning on August 24 at 2:15 pm EDT (18:15 GMT) and ending four hours later at 6:12 pm EDT (22:12 GMT), the spacecraft captured a series of images that were compared to earlier ones taken before the crash.

Looking at an image taken in June 2022, the LRO Operations team found that the latest LRO images showed a fresh crater near the predicted Russian estimate. Located at 57.865 °S and 61.360 °E on the southwest rim of Pontécoulant G crater close to the lunar south polar region, the new crater is 10 m (33 ft) in diameter and a negative height of 360 m (1,181 ft) below the lunar elevation standard and 400 km (250 miles) from the planned landing area.

Source: NASA