If losses hold, it would wipe most of Intuitive Machines's gains from last week after the first US touchdown on the lunar surface in more than half a century and a first by the private sector.
The proliferation of commercial space ventures has itself been driven by leaps in technology in recent decades.
In a first, a private American company's moon lander achieved lunar orbit.
The moon is about 40 million years older than previously thought
The Kremlin has played down the failure of the mission, saying Russia will continue to pursue ambitious plans in space.
Though many moon missions fail, the crash underscored the decline of Russia's space power since the glory days of Cold War competition.
MIDDLE ISRAEL: Financial markets say that the prudent Netanyahu they once knew has – like Putin’s spacecraft – lost his way and ceased to exist.
In 2009 water was discovered on the surface of the Moon's south pole. Now a new space race has developed to be the first to access these frozen reserves.
A successful mission would make India only the fourth country to successfully land on the moon, after the former USSR, the United States and China.
Russia's moon mission failed after the Luna-25 spacecraft slammed into the moon.
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