Russia’s first lunar mission in decades crashes into the moon

Russia’s first lunar mission in decades has ended in failure with its Luna 25 spacecraft crashing into the moon’s surface.

The incident, a blow to Russia’s space ambitions, happened after communication with the robotic spacecraft was interrupted.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said it lost touch with Luna 25 on Saturday around 2:57 p.m. Moscow time.

“The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and get into contact with it did not yield any results,” the space agency reported.