The Luna 25 spacecraft reported an “emergency situation on board,” Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said on Saturday.
An incident occurred as the spacecraft was trying to enter a pre-landing orbit, according to Roscosmos.
“During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” Roscosmos said in a Telegram post.
Is it manned? I hope the cosmonauts get home safe regardless of nationality
It is not manned.
The next manned mission is Artemis 3 in 2025.
Wow only 2 years away? Is this really happening? I’ve heard nothing about it.
Edit: looks like the answer is maybe… https://spacenews.com/nasa-weighs-changes-to-artemis-3-if-key-elements-are-delayed/
I know you found your answer already, but for anyone else who doesn’t feel like reading a long article:
Yes this is really happening, but no it’s very unlikely it will be in 2025. Maybe 2026. Artemis 1 had a relatively minor heat shield issue that could but likely won’t delay the Nov 2024 launch of Artemis 2(crewed orbit around moon, no landing), which could in turn delay Artemis 3. The bigger problem though for Artemis 3’s timeline is the lunar lander, which is supposed to be a modified version of SpaceX’s Starship. Given the issues the normal version of Starship has had, confidence has dropped they’ll be able to deliver the lander in time for the mission.
This next bit is pure speculation on my part but I’m personally of the opinion that Artemis 3 will end up merely a crewed orbit of the moon like Artemis 2. With 2 other crewed landings planned for this decade, I feel they’ll sacrifice the main goal of the mission before they sacrifice the timeline too much. Artemis 4 is likely also going to swap spots with Artemis 5, as the main goal of Artemis 4(Lunar space station) is at best described as in “development hell”, while Artemis 5 is basically Artemis 3 but with a different non-SpaceX lander.
It doesn’t look like it’s manned, just a robot
First manned mission to moon after 50 years would generate more press I assume.
Wait you thought a Russian manned mission to the moon was happening and you hadn’t heard about it? That would be global news, mostly about the technical “how can they possibly attempt this?”