NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected a new crater on the Moon, thought likely to have been caused by the impact of the lost Russian probe, Luna 25, according to a press release issued on 31 August 2023. The crater is located on the inner rim of Pontécoulant G Crater, a position along Luna 25's planned trajectory, but about 400 km short of its intended landing site. This is approximately where Russia's Roscosmos space agency has predicted the probe impacted the Moon.
Roscosmos, has lost contact with its Luna-25 spacecraft on Saturday 19 August, after a thruster rocket fired for 127 seconds instead of 84 as was planned, and believes that it has been destroyed after crashing into the Moon. The probe was intended to mark Russia's return to the Moon for the first time since the Soviet Luna 24 probe in 1977, which was the first robotic probe to land on the surface of another Solar System body, collect a sample, and return to Earth.
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