Russia wants to become the first country to make a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole, an area believed to contain water in the form of ice.
Russia started the scientific instruments on board its lunar lander on Sunday and scientists began processing its first data, as it is on its way to the Moon, reports Reuters.
“Luna-25 continues its flight to the natural satellite of the Earth – all systems of the automatic station are working properly, communication with it is stable, the energy balance is positive,” the space agency Roscosmos said in a statement.
“The first measurements of the flight to the Moon have been obtained and the project’s science team has started processing them,” the agency continued.
The space race relaunched
Russia’s Luna-25 mission is notably in competition with India, which launched its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander last month, to achieve a soft landing on the south pole of the Moon, where scientists have detected in recent years. traces of water in the form of ice in shadowed craters in the area.
A Soyuz rocket carrying the Luna-25 spacecraft lifted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East on Friday and left Earth orbit an hour later. It is expected to land on the Moon on August 21.
With this mission, Russia is trying to keep a place in the space race: it is the first probe sent to the Moon since 1976. In parallel, the United States and the European Union have been developing for several years the Artemis program, which aims for astronauts to walk the Moon again in 2025, at the earliest.