The crash-down of the Luna-25 probe was a major disappointment for the Russian space program, and it appears to have left a mark.
, NASA said Thursday, revealing images that show the suspected impact site.
Russia's first moon mission in 47 years ended in failure on August 19 when the Luna-25 probe smashed into the moon after a thruster firing went awry, cutting off communications and putting the spacecraft on the wrong orbital path, according to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft captured images last week of what the U.S. space agency described as a"During the descent to the surface on August 19, the Russian spacecraft Luna-25 experienced an anomaly that caused it to smash into the moon's surface. The faiint arrow in this NASA image shows where the agency believes the probe made impact.
The Russians have had little success with independent space exploration since the Luna-24 robot landed on the moon in 1976. It scooped up about six ounces of lunar soil and returned it to Earth in Russia's third successful robotic lunar sample return mission. Twelve NASA astronauts walked on the moon a half century ago in the agency's Apollo program, but no Russian cosmonauts ever made the trip. Russia's only previous post-Soviet deep space robotic missions, both targeting Mars, ended in failure.Luna-25 was an attempt to pick up the torch and put Russia back into a new space race of sorts, as the U.S.
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