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Russia’s First Moon Landing in Decades Ends in Failure After Crash

Roscosmos, the country’s space program, said it lost contact with Luna 25 Saturday afternoon during its pre-landing orbit and never regained it.

The Russian space agency’s first mission to the moon in several decades ended in failure Sunday when its craft, the Luna 25, crash landed into the lunar surface, authorities said. Roscosmos, the country’s space program, said it lost contact with the lander Saturday afternoon during its pre-landing orbit and never regained it, leading to the crash. “The measures taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and get into contact with it did not yield any results,” Roscosmos said in a statement. It remains unclear what caused the loss of contact, though Russian authorities said they would impanel a special commission to investigate the incident.