Russian spacecraft crashes into the moon after suddenly losing control

Officials with Russia's national space agency, Roscosmos, issued a statement confirming that they lost control of their Luna-25 spacecraft which eventually crashed into the moon.

The statement from Roscosmos stated, "The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon."

The Luna-25 craft was scheduled to land on the moon on Monday in order to beat an Indian spacecraft scheduled to land on Aug. 23.

Roscosmos's statement continued by saying, "During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters."

This setback for Russia is a big concern for NASA as they are planning to conduct a manned mission to the moon in 2025, which, if successful, will be the nearest mankind has gotten to the moon since 1972.

That mission is going to set the stage for future manned missions to the moon's surface. NASA needs to know what went wrong with Russia's mission in order to better ensure success in their own missions.