MOSCOW: An “emergency” was detected on Saturday during a manoeuvre by Russia’s Luna-25 probe prior to its Moon landing, Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

“Thrust was released to transfer the probe onto the pre-landing orbit,” Roscosmos said in a statement.

“During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the carrying out of the manoeuvre within the specified conditions.”

The lander, Russia’s first such mission in almost 50 years, was successfully placed in the Moon’s orbit on Wednesday after being launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome in the country’s Far East.

Roscosmos did not say if the incident would delay the landing, due to take place on Monday, north of the Boguslawsky crater on the lunar south pole.

Russian spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon today

In June, Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov told President Vladimir Putin that such missions were “risky”, with an estimated success probability of around 70 per cent.

The probe is expected to stay on the Moon for a year, where it is tasked with collecting samples and analysing soil.

Cameras installed on the lander have already taken distant shots of the Earth and Moon from space.

Russia is seeking to restart and rebuild on the Soviet Union’s pioneering space programme as the future of its long-running space cooperation with the West looks in doubt amid the offensive in Ukraine.

Russia said it would go ahead with its own lunar plans, despite the European Space Agency announcing it would not cooperate with Moscow on future missions over its actions in Ukraine.The Russian spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, part of a big power race to explore a part of the moon which scientists think may hold frozen water and precious elements.

“During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the manoeuvre to be performed with the specified parameters,” Roskosmos said in a short statement.

Specialists are analysing the situation, it said, without providing further details.

Earlier, Roskosmos said it had received the first results from the Luna-25 mission and that they were being analysed.

The agency also posted images of the moon’s Zeeman crater taken from the spacecraft. The crater is the third deepest in the moon’s southern hemisphere, it said, measuring 190 km in diametre and eight km (five miles) in depth.

Roskosmos said data it had received so far had provided information about the chemical elements in the lunar soil and would also facilitate the operation of devices designed to study the near-surface of the moon.

It added that its equipment had registered “the event of a micrometeorite impact”. The Luna-25 entered the moon’s orbit on Wednesday, the first Russian spacecraft to do so since 1976.

Roughly the size of a small car, it will aim to operate for a year on the south pole, where scientists at Nasa and other space agencies in recent years have detected traces of frozen water in the craters.

The presence of water has implications for major space powers, potentially allowing longer human sojourns on the moon that would enable the mining of lunar resources.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2023