Russian space agency says its Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the moon
Moscow (AP): The Russian space agency says its Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon.
Russia's unmanned robot lander crashed after it had spun into uncontrolled orbit, the country's space agency Roscosmos reported on Sunday.
The agency said it lost contact with the spacecraft on Saturday after it ran into trouble while preparing for its pre-landing orbit.
"The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon," read Sunday's statement from the space agency.
The launch earlier this month was Russia's first since 1976 when it was part of the Soviet Union. The crash comes after Roscosmos reported an "abnormal situation" that its specialists were analysing on Saturday.
"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.
The spacecraft was scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, racing to land on Earth's satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft.
The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.
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England sticking with Key, McCullum and Stokes despite Ashes humbling
London (AP): England is not sacking anybody following the 4-1 Ashes loss in Australia.
A review of the tour by the England and Wales Cricket Board, announced within hours of the final match in January, was concluded on Monday. Firing people would “be the easy thing to do,” ECB chief executive Richard Gould said but he insisted, "This is not the time to throw everything out."
Managing director Rob Key, coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes kept their jobs after the best England side to go to Australia in 14 years lost the Ashes in 11 days with two games to spare.
“Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That's not the route that we're going to take,” Gould said. “I've seen the driving ambition and determination that we're lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes and move forward.”
Gould previously was the chief executive of Bristol City soccer club and said the ECB would not follow the same route as soccer's hire-and-fire culture.
“Cricket is a very unique sport in that it takes a team of leadership ... it's not like football where there's a single point of failure or success with a manager," he said. He added the ECB would not “select or deselect management based on a popularity campaign.”
The main criticisms of England's tour were poor preparation, player misbehavior, and selection mistakes.
At a press conference at Lord's, Gould and Key said McCullum and Stokes have not had a “bust up,” they did not want McCullum to “completely change” but “to evolve,” the behavior of some players was “unprofessional,” there will be more consequences for underperforming, and a commitment to “better long-term planning” ahead of major test series.
Some changes were already implemented for the Twenty20 World Cup, where England reached the semifinals. Gould implied that performance saved McCullum.
Key acknowledged that England supporters would be disappointed to see the management team go unpunished.
“I know people want punishment and that people then should be sacked for that,” Key said. “That doesn't mean we don't feel like we've gone through some serious pain: Brendon, myself, Ben. It's been as tough a time as I think I've had.”
