NASA footage shows that the crashed Russian Luna 25 mission left a crater on the moon

Russian Luna 25 spacecraft left a 10-meter-wide crater on the moon when it crashed last month after struggling to prepare for a soft landing at the South Pole, according to footage released by NASA.

Luna 25 is believed to be an image of a new crater before the accident. (NASA) Luna 25, Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years, failed on Aug. 19 when it spun out of control and crashed into the moon, marking the end of the most powerful post-Soviet space program.

U.S. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) photographed a new crater on the moon’s surface and concluded that it could be the impact site of the Russian Luna 25 mission.

“The diameter of the new crater is about 10 meters,” NASA said. “Because this new crater is close to the predicted impact point of Luna 25, the LRO team concluded that it is more related to the mission than to a natural impact.”
After the disaster, Moscow announced that a special inter-ministerial commission had been established to investigate the causes of the death of the Luna-25 spacecraft.

Although several moon missions have failed, the accident marked the decline of Russia’s space power since the glory days of the Cold War rivalry, when Moscow launched its first satellite into orbit in 1957 – Sputnik 1 – with Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin. A man flies into space in 1961.