Luna 25 crashes and Russia's return to the moon is a disaster.

The Luna 25 spacecraft, designed to usher in a new era of space research, crashed into the Moon after entering an uncontrolled orbit, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos. The catastrophe most likely reflects the error of rushing the mission to beat India's Chandrayaan-3 to the sought-after location. However, it's also Roscosmos' third significant setback since the invasion of Ukraine that prompted the imposition of sanctions.

With the claimed goal of landing close to the lunar south pole, where planetary scientists have discovered indications of ice at the bottom of deep craters, Luna 25 was launched on August 10. If fact, this area would be a great location for future outposts as astronauts wouldn't have to supply their own water, which would lower mission expenses.

However, landing close to the poles is far more difficult than at other places on the Moon, which explains why nobody has tried it before. India considered the opportunity to reach the south pole first as its chance to set a first by accomplishing something that more seasoned spacefaring nations had not done. Russia entered the race after Chandrayaan-3 launched on July 14 and achieved lunar orbit on August 5.

Roscosmos aimed to complete the same journey in a fourth of the time, in contrast to the Indian Space Research Organisation, which approached the Moon slowly and steadily in an effort to reduce danger. Two days before India will be prepared, on Monday, the landing was planned.

Roscosmos sent a brief remark on Telegram late on Saturday night, Russian time, hinting that something had gone wrong but offering no further information. On Russian social media, speculation soon spread that the circumstance must be critical because Roscosmos would not have acknowledged the issue otherwise given its prior lack of transparency.

Now that the space agency has acknowledged that it lost communication with the craft after it moved to its pre-landing orbit, it appears that the guessing game was accurate.

Roscosmos claimed in a statement that "the apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon."

The Roscosmos website is currently blocking access, which may not be a coincidence. Some social media sites still assert that contact with the craft has been reestablished, however, these claims seem to be based on unfounded optimism.

Four years after landing an unmanned craft on the moon's surface, the Soviet Union brought back soil samples, but neither it nor any of its predecessors have returned since 1976.

Since the Soviet Union was the first to build an artificial satellite and place a person in orbit, the power of the Russian space launch capability has been repeatedly shown. In fact, for a decade, NASA's ability to transport people to the international space station depended on their old adversaries. The Soviet/Russian record has been significantly less remarkable outside of Low Earth Orbit, with the majority of their missions to Mars and the Moon failing.

Even before this catastrophe, Luna 25 had issues; a planned rover was apparently abandoned to reduce weight. Two Russian cargo ships have experienced leaks in the interim. One of them has been attributed to poor luck after being hit by an abnormally big micrometeorite, but the other has not been explained, adding to the program's chaotic atmosphere.

It is certain that some individuals would draw a connection between this and the invasion of Ukraine, maybe attributing the occurrences to sabotage or having something to do with the coming end of Russian participation in the ISS. But in 2021, long before the war started, a number of cracks were discovered in the Russian module of the International Space Station.

The leakage from those cracks was a thousand times below the emergency threshold, but they nonetheless showed a quality control issue that might be the cause of the more recent, more significant depressurization.

The Chief Designer of Russia's future orbital station stated in an interview with TASS that his project "Will be practically 'eternal.'" None of this inspires much confidence.