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Too early to jump to conclusions about failed Russian lunar mission — Roscosmos

The Soyuz-2.1b carrier vehicle with the Luna-25 automatic probe was launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome at 2:10 a.m. Moscow time on August 11

MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. It is still premature to draw any conclusions about why Russia’s Luna-25 mission to the Moon crashed, as an ad hoc commission is still doing its work, the country’s state-run space corporation told TASS.

"The [ad hoc] commission is still busy doing its work, and it will publish the results as soon as it is done. It’s too early to draw conclusions about the reasons [behind the failed mission]," Roscosmos said.

The Soyuz-2.1b carrier vehicle with the Luna-25 automatic probe was launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome at 2:10 a.m. Moscow time on August 11. On August 12 and 14, the automatic probe adjusted its flight path twice. The apparatus entered a near-lunar orbit on Wednesday, August 16, and its landing on the surface of the Moon was slated for August 21.

However, communication with the lunar lander was lost after the spacecraft received an impulse to activate its pre-landing elliptical orbit on August 19.

Roscosmos Director General Yury Borisov said that an ad hoc commission had been set up to investigate the causes of the failed Luna-25 mission. He specified that the abnormal operation of the lunar probe’s thrusters in its orbit adjustment was behind the automatic station’s crash: the engines operated for 127 seconds instead of the scheduled 84.

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