MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. The engine malfunction which led to the recent failure of Russia's Luna-25 mission was a "teething problem," and frequent missions to the Moon and other celestial bodies will help to eradicate them, Alexander Rodin of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) has told TASS.
"In my opinion, one conclusion can be drawn: we need to fly more missions, and not just to the Moon. We hope that as a result of work under the Promising Space Systems and Services roadmap, for which MIPT is the backbone scientific institution, tens and hundreds of spacecraft of various classes will be orbited, and such 'teething problems' will become a thing of the past," said Rodin, who heads MIPT’s Applied Infrared Spectroscopy Lab.
Roscosmos Chief Yury Borisov said on Monday that the propulsion unit of the Luna-25 automatic lunar probe had operated for 127 seconds during its orbit adjustment instead of the planned 84 seconds, which was the main cause of the probe’s crash. At the same time, Borisov underscored that this failure should not be a reason for Russia to suspend its lunar program or withdraw from the moon race.
"Traditionally, the propulsion unit is the most vulnerable element of interplanetary missions and landings on other celestial bodies," Rodin said. "It will be impossible to conduct full-cycle ground tests of its work under real conditions, that is in a vacuum, in zero gravity and under direct solar radiation all together. At the same time, flight tests even in near-Earth orbits require colossal funding. In reality, this will be possible only on the condition of standardized equipment and regular launches."
The Luna-25 automatic station ceased to exist after crashing into the Moon’s surface. Before that, the spacecraft was given an impulse to create its pre-landing elliptical orbit. At about 2:57 p.m. Moscow time on August 19, contact with the Luna-25 lunar probe was lost. The spacecraft’s landing was set for August 21.