The “major embarrassment” of the crash of Russia’s Luna 25 into last weekend had helped place Vladimir Putin into a “dangerous position”.
This is the assessment of economic geographer Professor John Bryson of the University of Birmingham, who says that the spacecraft’s loss is the latest in a string of failures that are undermining the “incompetent” leader’s standing at home and on the international stage.
Launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East on August 11, — as the State Space Corporation, Roscosmos, put it — that Russia is “a state capable of delivering a payload to the Moon.”
It was also carrying various instruments that would have allowed it to photograph the lunar surface, collect geological samples and conduct other scientific measurements.
However, contact with the mission was lost last Saturday morning, with Roscosmos announcing the next day that the craft had “ceased to exist”.
Prof. Bryson told Daily Express US: “President Putin suffers from a distorted sense of reality — as he considers that Russia remains a great superpower, when the reality is very different.
“Russia is a former superpower and is a country that is on a trajectory that is more aligned with North Korea or Iran, rather than the US or even China.
“Part of Putin’s distorted sense of reality is his belief that Russia can compete in the new space race. Unfortunately for Putin, this ambition has been shown to be little more than a dream with the failure of the Luna 25 mission.
“There are many reasons for this failure, but these include Russia’s severance from global supply chains, combined with on-going failure to successfully conclude Putin’s ‘special Ukraine operation’.”
Prof. Bryson continued: “Putin has a major problem. His position within Russia and his international standing is continually being eroded by his own incompetence.”
The invasion of and now the loss of Luna 25, the geographer explained, both represent prominent blots on Putin’s copybook.
He added: “It is dangerous for a political leader in Putin’s position to develop a reputation for a stream of failures.”
For Prof. Bryson, Putin’s failures stem from a combination of poor decision-making and his failure to adequately invest in Russia’s economic infrastructure.
, he explained, appears to be operating on an outmoded sense of statecraft founded on territorial conquest, rather than on economic and scientific prowess.
Prof. Bryson quipped: “Instead of over-investing in weapons of mass destruction, Putin should have been investing in Russia’s economic, scientific, and education infrastructure.”
“Putin’s political legacy will be one of 20 years of Russian under-development. The failure of the Luna 25 mission is a major embarrassment for Putin, and he needs to take responsibility.”
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Yesterday, meanwhile, Roscosmos Director General Yury Borisov moved to place the blame a little further back in time.
He said: “Interrupting the lunar programme for almost 50 years is the main reason for the failure [of the Luna 25 mission].
“The invaluable experience that our predecessors accumulated in the 1960s and 1970s was practically lost.”
Russia last landed a probe on the Moon — Luna 24 — back in 1976. After this, their focus shifted away from lunar exploration in favor of the construction of the Mir space station and sending more “Venera” probes off to study Venus.
Mr Borisov went on to advocate for Roscosmos’ continued pursuit of lunar exploration, suggesting that a termination of the programme would be “the worst decision”.
What do scientists think of the loss of Luna 25?
Russia’s future plans ‘put into question’
“Landing on the Moon is difficult,” says Dr Markus Landgraf, a senior system architect at the European Space Agency — explaining that a key challenge is calibrating the ground- and space-based hardware during the short (five day) trip to the Moon.
He added: “Only mission managers with the largest amount of background in mission analysis in general, and Moon missions in particular, can have hopes to achieve a positive outcome.”
Like Roscosmos chief Yury Borisov, Dr Landgraf notes that Russia seems to have lost the experience and momentum gained during its last lunar landings in the 1970s.
Dr Landgraf adds: “Roscosmos had previously formulated an objective of human missions in the 2040s, which is now put into question.
“Also, at the global exploration conference in St Petersburg in 2021, Roscosmos had signed a cooperation agreement with China on lunar exploration.
“While we have to wait for the findings from the on-going investigation, we can expect that international partners will be more concerned about the technical competencies in Roscosmos in the frame of future plans.”
Lessons ‘would be learned’
Planetary scientist Professor Mahesh Anand of the Open University, in contrast, seems a little more optimistic.
He told Daily Express US: “Space exploration is inherently challenging, and many missions experience a premature ending. Luna 25 is no exception.
“Russia, like many other space-active nations, has a series of lunar missions planned for the next decade and undoubtedly, lessons would be learned from the Luna 25 experience for the benefit of future missions.
“The Moon remains a key target for worldwide space agencies as well as the rapidly growing private space sector for scientific, economic, and societal reasons.”
No longer a ‘space superpower’
Dr Lucinda King — space projects manager at the University of Portsmouth — notes that Luna 25 had been on track to be the first successful landing in the Moon’s southern polar region, an achievement that would have been a source of a “huge amount of national pride” for Russia.
(This area of the Moon is of considerable scientific interest, as it contains the largest concentration of permanently shadowed regions thought to contain water ice that could be broken down to provide both life-sustaining air and potentially rocket fuel.)
Dr King adds: “In recent years Russia’s civilian space programme has been in decline as funds are redirected to the military, and this mission is just one in a list of recent failures. Once a space superpower, Russia’s space prowess is suffering.”
“On a wider perspective, the crash has raised concerns about contamination of the Lunar surface, with the South Pole being a place of significant scientific and strategic interest.”
At present, the exact location of the crash site remains to be determined. It is possible that the craft crashed into another location on the Moon’s surface.
Speaking to Russian state news agency TASS, Mr Borisov also revealed more specifics about the spacecraft’s malfunction.
He attributed the “main cause” of the crash to engines over-firing on Saturday during a course correction intended to put the craft in its pre-landing orbit.
Mr Borisov said: “Unfortunately, the thruster shutdown did not occur normally in accordance with the cyclogram, but under a time cutoff — and it operated for 127 seconds instead of 84.”
(In this context, a “cyclogram” is equivalent to a flight plan for the operation of the spacecraft’s thrusters.)
It was less than an hour after this maneuver went awry — at 2:57 PM MSK (7:57AM ET) — that ground control lost contact with the Luna 25 spacecraft.
Luna 25 is understood to have made two similar course corrections en route to the Moon without issue.
According to TASS, the command sent to the engines was “numerously tested on a ground-based simulator before it was uploaded” to Luna 25.
Mr Borisov said that a special commission has been established to investigate what went wrong during the third maneuver.
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