2023-08-08 11:00:45
Russia wants to launch a spacecraft to the moon for the first time in almost 50 years next Friday. The goal of the Luna 25 mission are long-term scientific studies on the Earth’s satellite, the Russian space agency Roskosmos announced on Monday. If the project succeeds, this would be the first Russian moon mission since 1976.
According to Roskosmos, the launch of the Luna 25 lander should take place at 1:10 a.m. German time (2:10 a.m. Moscow time) from the Vostochny cosmodrome with a Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle days set down the spacecraft near the south pole of the moon.
Actually, the probe should have been on the way for a long time. The first planned launch date was in 2012, with May 2022 being the last target. Luna-25 is part of the Russian lunar program. This envisages building a space station on the earth’s satellite by 2040. Russia is thus building on its Soviet Luna program, in which space probes also brought moon rocks to Earth. Moscow last sent the Luna-24 probe to the moon in 1976.
Illustration of Lunar-25 : Image: Lavochkin (www.laspace.ru)
Luna-25 is designed to help develop soft landing technology. In the course of this, the probe should also collect and analyze soil samples from the moon, Roskosmos said. The planned investigations also include a study of the surface layers in the area of the south pole of the moon. The mission should last at least a year.
Cold War in Space
In the far-eastern region of Khabarovsk, the authorities announced that the village of Shakhtinsky would be evacuated on Friday before the launch of the rocket, because the first stage of the Soyuz rocket could land there. The regional head of authorities, Alexei Maslow, announced that people would be brought to safety from 7.30 a.m. local time (11.30 p.m. German time).
The mission is the first of Russia’s new lunar program. It comes at a time of political tensions with the United States and Europe over Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine. Therefore, Moscow wants to strengthen its space cooperation, especially with China.
Roskosmos originally worked with the European space agency ESA on the Russian lunar program. After the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the European Space Agency said it would not cooperate with Russia on the launch of Luna-25 nor on future missions 26 and 27. Moscow then announced that it wanted to replace ESA equipment for its lunar projects with Russian-made equipment.
The competition for control and influence in space is in full swing. The USA and China are also currently stepping up their moon landing missions. So far, only the USA, Russia and China have landed on the moon.
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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has been trying to drive innovation in space exploration. Russia’s space programs are now not only in competition with other state actors, but also with private initiatives such as billionaire Elon Musk’s space company Space-X.
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