First mission in 50 years
Russia sends “Luna-25” to the moon
08/11/2023, 01:30 am
Russia wants to go back to the moon: a return to the moon has been planned for more than ten years – now the time has come. The rocket with “Luna-25” successfully takes off from the new Vostochny cosmodrome. The space probe is to search for water at the lunar south pole.
For the first time in almost 50 years, Russia has launched a flight to the moon with the “Luna-25” spacecraft. The space apparatus for exploring the moon is to land there at the South Pole and look for water, among other things. The Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with the probe on board took off as planned from the new Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Amur region at 9.10 a.m. local time (1.10 a.m. CEST), as shown in a live transmission by the Russian space agency Roskosmos. Everything is in the normal range, they said. The travel time to the earth satellite is therefore four and a half days. Because of technical problems, this first mission since 1976 had been postponed.
Actually, the probe should have been on the way for a long time. The first planned launch date for a lunar probe was 2012, and May 2022 was last targeted. “Luna-25” is part of the Russian lunar program. This envisages building a space station on the celestial body by 2040. Russia is thus building on its Soviet “Luna” program, in which space probes also brought moon rocks to Earth.
“Luna-25” should now help to develop a technology for a soft landing. For this purpose, the probe should collect and analyze soil samples from the moon, it said. The planned investigations also include a study of the surface layers in the area of the south pole of the moon.
In the far eastern region of Khabarovsk, the authorities had announced an evacuation of the village of Shakhtinsky before the planned launch of the rocket because the first rocket stage of the Soyuz could hit there. Roskosmos originally worked with the European space agency ESA on the Russian lunar program. However, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than 17 months ago, ESA ended its cooperation with Moscow.