Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years has ended in failure, after an unmanned spacecraft crashed into the Moon’s surface. 

The crash took place after Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, lost touch with Luna-25 on Saturday around 2.57pm Moscow time. The landing was scheduled to take place today, Monday August 21. 

“Due to the deviation of the actual pulse parameters from the calculated ones, the automatic station switched to an off-design orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface,” the agency said. 

Roscosmos added it has formed a special interdepartmental commission to investigate the mission’s failure.

Luna-25 was designed to become the first spacecraft to land on the Moon’s south pole, an area believed to hold frozen water as well as valuable elements.

However, India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft could now become the first to achieve this feat, as it is scheduled to land in the Moon’s south pole this week. From there...