Russia s aspirations for lunar exploration suffered a setback with the Luna-25 probe, the nation s first Moon mission in nearly 50 years, experiencing a crash on the lunar terrain during pre-landing manoeuvres. The confirmation of this unfortunate incident came directly from the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, on a Sunday.
Tragedy struck on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated while re-entering Earth s atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana. This catastrophic event resulted in the loss of all seven astronauts aboard the shuttle. This marked the second occasion in which a Space Shuttle mission ended in disaster, the first being the Challenger and its crew in 1986. The aftermath of the Columbia disaster led to suspension of Space Shuttle flight operations for over two years, mirroring the hiatus following the Challenger tragedy.
On Friday, the space agency announced that the health of Chandrayaan-3's Lander Module is normal, and added that the module has successfully undergone a deboosting (slowing down) operation taking it closer to the Moon
As of August 19, Chandrayaan's Vikram lander module is 157 km away from the Moon. On the other hand, Luna-25 is planning to make a landing on August 21 after successfully entering the lunar orbit around August 16.