Mission to moon: Russia's Luna-25 faces technical glitch, will it lag behind India's Chandrayaan-3 in the race?

As the world awaits for the ending of two friendly nations' race to moon, technical glitch in Russia's Luna-25 is feared to be a setback against India's Chandrayaan-3 landing.

On Saturday, Russia reported an “abnormal situation” on its moon-bound Luna-25 spacecraft, which was launched earlier in August.

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Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said the spacecraft faced an unspecified trouble while trying to enter a pre-landing orbit. The situation is still unclear and its specialists are analysing the situation.

“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,” Roscosmos said in a Telegram post.

Will the technical snag cause delay in Russia's Luna-25's landing on moon?

So far there has been no official statement by the Russian space agency on the impact of the technical glitch on Luna-25's timeline. Roscosmos didn't specify whether the incident will prevent Luna-25 from making a landing.

The spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, racing to land on Earth's satellite ahead of India's Chandrayaan-3. It is worth noting, that the lunar south pole has always stirred curiosity among scientists. Most of them believe that the permanently shadowed polar crates can be the home to water. The frozen water in the rocks could be used by future explorers to transform them into air and rocket fuel.

What are the latest findings of Luna-25?

On Saturday, the Russian spacecraft presented its first results. The information is currently being analysed by the scientists. The space agency, Roscosmos, reported that the preliminary data obtained contained information about the chemical elements of the lunar soil and that its equipment had registered a “micrometeorite impact.”

It also posted images of the Zeeman crater, which is the third largest in the moon's southern hemisphere-taken from the spacecraft. The crater has a diameter of 190 kilometers (118 miles) and is eight kilometers (five miles) deep.

It is worth noting, only three governments have managed sucessful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the first to land at the moon's south pole.