THE NEW SPACE RACE: Russia’s Lunar Lander Crashes Into the Moon: The robotic Luna-25 spacecraft appeared to have “ceased its existence” after a failed orbital adjustment, the space agency Roscosmos said. “The Luna-25 lander, Russia’s first space launch to the moon’s surface since the 1970s, entered lunar orbit last Wednesday and was supposed to land as early as Monday. On Saturday afternoon Moscow time, according to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, the spacecraft received orders to enter an orbit that would set it up for a lunar landing. But an unexplained ’emergency situation’ occurred, and the orbital adjustment did not occur.”

It’s a bad decade for Russian hardware.