Luna 25’s Impact Site, Captured By NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. See Before & After PICS

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has captured an image of a new crater on the lunar surface that is likely to be Luna 25’s impact site on the Moon. Luna 25 was modern Russia’s first spacecraft to be launched to the Moon, and aimed to softly land on the lunar south pole, but crashed two days before its tentative touchdown date. An anomaly occurred during lunar descent, causing Luna 25 to crash into the Moon on August 19, 2023. NASA has also shared an image of what the site looked like before Luna 25 crashed into the Moon. 

Yuriy Borisov, the chief of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, said that Luna 25 crashed into the Moon because its engines failed to shut down correctly. On August 22, the LRO Mission Operations team sent commands to the LRO spacecraft to capture images of the potential impact site of Luna 25. The images were captured by 3:42 am IST, on August 25, 2023. 

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LRO captured its most recent “before image” of the site in June 2022. In that image, no crater was visible. Therefore, the LRO team concluded that the new crater, which is close to the Luna 25 estimated impact site, has likely been created due to Luna 25 crashing on the Moon, rather than a natural impactor. 

According to NASA, the crater has a diameter of 10 metres. Luna 25’s impact point is located on the steep inner rim of the Pontécoulant G crater. This is at a distance of about 400 kilometres from Luna 25’s intended landing site. 

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More about Luna 25

Luna 25 was the first Soviet lunar exploration mission to be launched since 1976. It was an 800-kilogram lander, and had a launch mass of about 1,750 kilograms, because the mass of the propellant was about 950 kilograms. 

Luna 25 had two scientific goals: studying the composition of the polar regolith, and analysing the plasma and dust components of the lunar polar exosphere.

Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar exploration mission, successfully soft-landed on the Moon on August 23, making India the first country to softly land a spacecraft on the lunar south pole.