Russia's First Moon Mission in Decades Ends in a Crash

Russia's first attempt to return to the moon since 1976 has ended in an explosion. The nation's Luna-25 lander spun out of control while preparing to land and rammed into the moon's surface, reports CNN. "The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision," according to a statement from Russia's Roscosmos space agency, per the AP. All of which is "quite a blow" to Russia's space program, per Space.com. Russia had been racing to become the first country to land a rover on the moon's challenging south pole.

The failure of the mission means India is now on track to collect that honor—its Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to attempt a landing on Wednesday, per the Wall Street Journal. India is aiming to become only the fourth nation to land anywhere on the moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union, and China. The Journal notes that India's space budget is $1.5 billion, a fraction of the US budget of $25 billion. The moon's south pole is of particular interest to scientists because its craters may contain frozen water that could be transformed into air and rocket fuel for future space missions, per the AP. (More Russia stories.)