Russia's plan to launch its lunar lander on Friday is the latest in an international push to return to the Moon that includes the world's top powers but also new players.
Technology, science and politics are all essential factors in the Moon race.
Here is the latest:
China's great leap
China is pursuing plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030 and plans to build a base there.
The world's second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space programme in a push to catch up with the United States and Russia.
China was the third country to put humans in orbit in 2003 and Tiangong is the crown jewel of its space programme, which has also landed rovers on Mars and the Moon.
The unmanned Chang'e-4 rocket landed on the far side of the Moon in 2019, with another robot mission to the near side raising the Chinese flag there in 2020.
That moonshot brought rock and soil samples back to Earth, the first time that has been done in more than four decades.
NASA's Artemis
NASA's Artemis 3 mission is set to return humans to the Moon in 2025 including its first woman and first non-white astronaut.
Under the Artemis program, NASA is planning a series of missions of increasing complexity to return to the Moon and build a sustained presence in order to develop and test technologies for an eventual journey to Mars.
The first, Artemis 1, flew an uncrewed spacecraft around the Moon in 2022. Artemis 2, planned for November 2024, will do the same with crew on board.
NASA sees the Moon as a pit stop for missions to Mars and has done a deal with Finnish mobile firm Nokia to set up a 4G network there.
However, NASA said this week that the Artemis 3 mission may not land humans on the Moon, depending on whether certain key elements, including the landing system developed by SpaceX, were ready.
Elon Musk's firm won the contract for a landing system based on a version of its prototype Starship rocket, which remains far from ready.
An orbital test flight of the uncrewed Starship ended in a dramatic explosion in April.
Russia's Luna
Russia's launch of Luna-25 on Friday will be its first to the Moon since 1976 and marks the beginning of Moscow's new lunar project.
President Vladimir Putin is looking to strengthen space cooperation with China after ties with the West broke down following the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
New players
Recent technological progress has reduced the cost of missions and opened the way for new players in the public and private sector to get involved.
India's latest space mission Chandrayaan-3 entered the Moon's orbit in August ahead of the country's second attempted lunar landing later this month.
But getting to the Moon is not an easy task. Israeli non-profit SpaceIL launched its Beresheet lunar lander in 2019, but it crashed.
And in April this year Japan's ispace was the latest company to try, and fail, at the historic bid to put a private lunar lander on the Moon.
Two other US companies, Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, are set to try later in the year.
© 2023 AFP
15 Comments
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JJE
LUNA 25 launch broadcast is live now. About 42 mins to launch (I think). The water vapor clouds are swirling around the Soyuz rocket indicating it's fuelled.
It can be viewed on RT and other channels.
JJE
YouTube: Roscosmos TV also has a live broadcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgi2pIFrnW4
JJE
Blast off!
JJE
That was brilliant. The downward pointed cameras attached to the rocket give an amazing perspective.
Afterwards on the Roscosmos TV broadcast they put on a rock-jazz-band for a live concert-song complete with saxophone and the works. In the background of the stage was the famous photo of a smiling Yuri Gagarin holding a dove. The comments section went bananas, with many Indians and people from all over positively commenting.
Reports are still coming in that everything went smoothly.
Asiaman7
”Hot up” is chiefly British English.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hot%20up
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hot-up
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/magazine/10wwln-safire-t.html
Strangerland
It's hard to feel supportive of a nation executing its neighbors in the streets. That whole thing drags down accomplishments like this. Now these scientists can't have their glory, because everyone knows it was Russia.
Bill Lewis
Since when is "hot" a verb? Extremely poor wording for a headline.
JJE
Update - Roscocmos just announced that Luna 25 will land on the moon on August 21.
ClippetyClop
It's an intransitive verb in this case, 'to hot up'.
Not sure why people seem to be struggling with it. Maybe they need to cool down.
Moskollo
May as well just shoot a billion dollars in the sky and blow it up. Getting to mars is the one mankind should be working to, not a dead rock..
Speed
I couldn't care less if they put people on the moon again.
These countries can go ahead and spend billions of dollars of much needed money on their need to feed their state ego rather than the people of their nations for their immediate humanitarian and quality of life needs.
I look at the moon in the night sky and feel the power and the beauty of it on my evening walks. No need for people to be walking on it.
dagon
You are correct Asiaman7, thanks and I thought I was familiar with most Anglicisms.
Wonder if it is of recent coinage.
justsomeguy8008
I, for one, can't wait to look up at the moon and see lights. Knowing there are people up there doing amazing work and pushing mankind forward is the natural flow of intelligent species evolution, and I am sure that soon enough humanoid robots with intelligent AI will be joining them in mining the moon and creating habitats for people to stay in. I hope average people in my lifetime will be able to travel there just as people now can travel to other parts of the world for vacation. How exciting that would be! God speed!
wallace
If there is water on the moon then the scientific meanings are greater. Like Mars once had cold and hot seasons.
Yuuju
I wonder what is worth such a moneywaste up there... just water?..