MOSCOW, Russia -- The Luna-25 probe, Russia's first Moon mission in almost 50 years, has crashed on the Moon after an incident during pre-landing manoeuvres, Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Sunday.
According to preliminary findings, the lander"has ceased to exist following a collision with the Moon's surface".
With Luna-25, Moscow had hoped to build on the legacy of its Soviet-era Luna programme, marking a return to independent lunar exploration in the face of financial troubles and corruption scandals at the programme and growing isolation from the West. Roscosmos boss Yuri Borisov had said the venture would be"risky", telling President Vladimir Putin in June that the probability of it succeeding was"around 70 percent".
While Russia has said it intends to use the International Space Station until 2028, the European Space Agency has dropped plans to co-operate with Moscow on Moon and Mars missions.
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