An unmanned Russian spacecraft has crashed into the surface of the Moon after spinning out of control, according to officials.
The Luna-25 spacecraft was part of Russia's first Moon mission in almost 50 years, which launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region of Russia on August 11.
Luna-25 successfully entered the Moon's orbit on Wednesday, with it being planned to be the first-ever craft to land on the Moon's south pole.
However, the mission failed when the craft encountered problems as it moved into its pre-landing orbit, colliding with the Moon.
Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, said it lost contact with Luna-25 shortly after 2:57PM on Saturday afternoon, saying: "Spacecraft entered an unplanned orbit and ceased to exist after colliding with the surface of the Moon."
While the cause of the failure is as yet unknown, preliminary findings believe the lander, which weighs 800kg, had "ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon", adding that a special commission would look into what went wrong.
Luna-25 was set to explore a part of the Moon which scientists believe may hold precious elements as well as frozen water, which has previously been unexplored.
This was Russia's first mission to the Moon since 1976, as they attempted to reach the south pole before India, whose Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is scheduled to land there in the coming days.
The craft is set to send a rover to gather data and images from the rocks and craters in the area and send these back to Earth.
It is believed that water could be found on the Moon's surface due to parts of the south pole being in permanent shadow.
A spokesperson for Isro, the Indian space agency, described the Luna-25's fate as "unfortunate", adding to the BBC: "Every space mission is very risky and highly technical. It's unfortunate that Luna-25 has crashed."
Luna-25 had been set to make history by being the first craft to land on this part of the Moon on Monday or Tuesday this week, beating the Indian mission by just a few days.
Roscosmos had acknowledged that the mission was risky and could potentially fail.
Luna-25 was the first craft Russia had sent to the moon since Luna-24 in 1976, which landed successfully on the surface.
No crafts have ever landed on the south pole of the Moon to date, however, the US and China have both landed crafts on the surface of the Moon successfully in the past.
