The Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the moon lander Luna-25 automatic station takes off from a launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russia’s Far East,on August 11.Credit:
It said a special inter-departmental commission had been formed to investigate the reasons behind the loss of the Luna-25 craft,whose mission had raised hopes in Moscow that Russia was returning tothe big power moon race.
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The failure underscored the decline of Russia’s space power sincethe glory days of Cold War competition when Moscow was the first to launch a satellite to orbit the Earth - Sputnik 1,in 1957 - and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space in 1961.
It also comes as Russia’s $2 trillion economy faces its biggest external challenge for decades:the pressure of both Western sanctions and fighting the biggest land war in Europe since World War II.
Russia had not attempted a moon mission since Luna-24 in 1976,when Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Kremlin.
Russian state television put news of the loss of Luna-25 at number eight in its lineup at noon and gave it just 26 seconds of coverage,after news about fires on Tenerife and a four-minute item about a professional holiday for Russian pilots and crews.