Officials say Russia’s unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon after spinning out of control.

In almost 50 years, Russia had not sent a mission to the Moon.

As it moved into its pre-landing orbit, the craft encountered problems that prevented it from landing on the Moon’s south pole.

The mission was to explore a part of the Moon where scientists believe frozen water and precious metals may be found.

In a statement on Sunday morning, Roscosmos said it lost contact with the Luna-25 shortly after 14:57pm (11:57 GMT) on Saturday.

According to preliminary findings, the 800kg lander “ceased to exist due to a collision with the surface of the Moon”.

A special commission would investigate why the mission failed.

Roscosmos has suffered a blow with the loss of Luna-25. Despite increased state funding for the military, Russia’s civilian space program has declined in recent years.

The Russian spacecraft was racing against India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which will land at the south pole of the Moon in the coming days and deploy a rover to explore the rocks and craters.

Water may be found on the Moon’s south pole because parts of it are permanently in shadow.

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Isro’s spokesperson called the crash of Luna-25 “unfortunate”.

As they told, “every space mission is highly technical and risky. It is unfortunate that Luna-25 has crashed.”.

There was no doubt that the Luna-25 mission would be risky and could fail, according to Roscosmos. Having launched from Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far eastern Amur region on 11 August, the craft entered the moon’s orbit on Wednesday.

Just days before the Indian touchdown, it was expected to make history by landing softly.

Although the US and China have both softly landed on the Moon’s surface, no country has ever landed on the south pole of the Moon.

Luna-25 was Russia’s first lunar mission since 1976, when it was a part of the Soviet Union. Luna-24 landed successfully.