The legendary Luna missions with which the USSR robotically explored our satellite return in the twenty-first century, precisely at a time when the US competes with China to send their respective astronauts to our satellite sooner. Russia has no plans or means to send its cosmonauts to the lunar surface, but this Friday it is preparing to send its first robot to the moon since 1976, Luna-25 (also known as Luna-Glob).
As detailed by the Russian agency, Roscosmos, after several postponements and delays (the initial plan was for the launch to be in 2019), the takeoff is scheduled for Friday, August 11 at 02.10.57, Moscow time (one hour less in Spain). A Soyuz rocket will be responsible for putting the lunar spacecraft into orbit from the Vostochny cosmodrome (about 5,500 kilometers from Moscow), bound for the longed-for south pole of the Moon, where it is believed that there are water reserves.
Due to this space launch, on Friday morning the Russian authorities will preemptively evacuate for a few hours the village of Shakhtinskyi, in the Khabarovsk region, southeast of the launch base, as the village is in the planned area where the rocket boosters will fall after they separate, Reuters reports.
The South Pole is also the place chosen by China for its future missions and by the US to send the astronauts of Artemis 3, who will step on our satellite, at the earliest, in December 2025. India will also land on the south pole its robotic probe Chandrayaan-3, launched on July 14. According to the authorities of that country, the descent of its probe will be on August 23, a few days after Luna-25.
Find out more
Space.
This is the spacecraft in which four NASA astronauts will orbit the Moon: "The goal remains to land on the moon in December 2025"
- Writing: TERESA GUERRERO Madrid
This is the spacecraft in which four NASA astronauts will orbit the Moon: "The goal remains to land on the moon in December 2025"
Space.
The 'perfect storm' that has plunged Europe into a rocket crisis
- Writing: TERESA GUERRERO Madrid
The 'perfect storm' that has plunged Europe into a rocket crisis
The Luna-25 spacecraft, weighing about 800 kilos and powered by solar cells and batteries, will take between four and a half and five and a half days to reach our satellite, where it will land, "in a complicated area," according to Roscosmos. Their job will be to sample and analyze the lunar regolith and conduct scientific research with its eight instruments in the so-called Boguslawsky crater. The spacecraft will test new technologies, investigate volatile organic compounds and the presence of water in this area. If all goes well, it is expected to be operational for a year.
If all goes well, the landing of Luna-25 will take place a few days before another spacecraft, the Indian Chandrayaan-3, launched on July 14, arrives at our satellite. According to Indian authorities, the descent of its probe will be on August 23.
The Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the Luna-25ROSCOSMOSEFE spacecraft
Between January 1959 and August 1976, the Soviet Union sent to the Moon a flotilla of 24 probes and space satellites designed by scientist Sergei Korolev with the aim of photographing and studying the surface of our satellite. Three of them brought samples of lunar rocks back to Earth. Luna-24 closed this program that Russia now resumes.
Although it was kept secret, the Soviets also launched a manned program to go to the Moon and compete with NASA's Apollo missions during the Cold War, with the N1 rocket, which failed to carry it out successfully despite the estimated investment of 6,000 million euros. In 1976 this project was terminated.
The new Luna robotic program was approved in 2014, and in addition to Luna-25, Luna-26 and Luna-27 are scheduled to be launched in the coming years.
Russia's future lunar plans directly involve China, with which it has strengthened its collaboration in recent years, as shown by its intention to build a lunar base together in the coming years.
That cooperation with the Asian giant has intensified further since 2022. The war in Ukraine has broken Russia's space cooperation with Western countries in most missions, except in the International Space Station (ISS), where despite the threats of the former director of Roscosmos, it maintains its participation. The conflict in Ukraine led the European Space Agency (ESA) to postpone last year the ExoMars mission that it was preparing together with Russia, and that was going to put on Mars a sophisticated robotic vehicle to search for signs of life on the red planet.
Since the outbreak of war, European missions are no longer launched with Russian Soyuz rockets, which has forced ESA to look for alternatives for numerous satellites and spacecraft that were to be launched with them and has aggravated the crisis due to the shortage of rockets suffered by the European space sector.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Learn more