Russia’s moon failure dent to its space partnership with China

News Snapshot:

The crash of Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft into the moon over the weekend isn’t just a setback for President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to overcome war-related sanctions. It’s also an embarrassment for Chinese President Xi Jinping—Putin’s partner in building a proposed base on the moon meant to challenge the US and its space allies. The Russian spacecraft was aiming to be the first to land near the south pole, the intended location of a joint base that space agencies in China and Russia announced in 2021 they had agreed to build together. Wu Yanhua, the chief designer of China’s major deep space...