Russia launched its first moon-landing spacecraft in 47 years on Friday in a bid to be the first nation to make a soft landing on the lunar south pole, a region believed to hold coveted pockets of water ice.
The Russian lunar mission, the first since 1976, is racing against India, which launched its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander last month, and more broadly with the United States and China, both of which have advanced lunar exploration programs targeting the lunar south pole.
A Soyuz 2.1v rocket carrying the Luna-25 craft blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome, 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow, at 2:11 a.m. on Friday Moscow time (1111 GMT on Thursday), with its upper stage boosting the lander out of Earth's orbit toward the moon over an hour later, Russia's space agency Roscosmos confirmed.
The lander is expected to touch down on the moon on Aug. 21, Russia's space chief Yuri Borisov told Interfax on Friday. Russian space agency Roscosmos previously pegged Aug. 23 as the landing date.
"Now we will wait for the 21st. I hope that a highly precise soft landing on the moon will happen," Borisov told workers at the Vostochny cosmodrome after the launch, according to Interfax.
Luna-25, roughly the size of a small car, will aim to operate for a year on the moon's south pole, where scientists at NASA and other space agencies in recent years have detected traces of water ice in the region's shadowed craters.
There is much riding on the Luna-25 mission, as the Kremlin says the West's sanctions over the Ukraine war, many of which have targeted Moscow's aerospace sector, have failed to cripple the Russian economy.
The moonshot, which Russia has been planning for decades, will also test the nation's growing independence in space after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine severed nearly all of Moscow's space ties with the West, besides its integral role on the International Space Station.
The European Space Agency had planned to test its Pilot-D navigation camera by attaching it to Luna-25, but severed its ties to the project after Russia invaded Ukraine.
"Russia's aspirations towards the moon are mixed up in a lot of different things. I think first and foremost, it's an expression of national power on the global stage," Asif Siddiqi, professor of history at Fordham University, told Reuters.
U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong gained renown in 1969 for being the first person to walk on the moon, but the Soviet Union's Luna-2 mission was the first spacecraft to reach the moon's surface in 1959, and the Luna-9 mission in 1966 was the first to make a soft landing there.
Moscow then focused on exploring Mars and since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has not sent scientific probes beyond earth orbit.
MOON WATER?
Major powers such as the United States, China, India, Japan and the European Union have all been probing the moon in recent years. A Japanese lunar landing failed last year and an Israeli mission failed in 2019.
No country has made a soft landing on the south pole. An Indian mission, Chandrayaan-2, failed in 2019.
Rough terrain makes a landing there difficult, but the prize of discovering water ice could be historic: large could be used to extract fuel and oxygen, as well as be used for drinking water.
"From the point of view of science, the most important task, to put it simply, is to land where no one else has landed," said Maxim Litvak, head of the planning group for the Luna-25 scientific equipment.
"There are signs of ice in the soil of the Luna-25 landing area; this can be seen from the data from orbit," he said, adding that Luna-25 would work on the moon for at least an earth year, taking samples.
Roscosmos said that it would take five days to fly to the moon. The craft will spend 5-7 days in lunar orbit before descending to one of three possible landing sites near the pole - a timetable that implies it could match or narrowly beat its Indian rival to the moon's surface.
Chandrayaan-3 is due to run experiments for two weeks.
With a mass of 1.8 tons and carrying 31 kg (68 pounds) of scientific equipment, Luna-25 will use a scoop to take rock samples from a depth of up to 15 cm (6 inches) to test for the presence of frozen water.
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023.
17 Comments
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Larr Flint
Russians have Soviet technology that is mastered to perfection. The only space station that is currently operating is actually a Soviet one that is shared with westerners.
I wouldn't be surprised that Soviets will land on the moons soon and establish their first station there.
Little to remaind they landed on Venus as well.
EFD
Russian perfection = gets there 1/2 the time.
So the Ruskie are FINALLY ready to replicated sending a robot to the moon. Wippee.
Meanwhile the United States is sending manned missions to the moon in the next 2_years and is headed to Mars.
But sure, repeating an unmanned probe mission to our closest celestial body is nice too. (Slow clap)
UChosePoorly
Good for Russia. Try not to hold any referenda while you are there.
Eastmann
we have read here.
russian economy is going down,sanctions,embragoes,limitations for this and that,no bank tts via swift...all in all will imove solated Russia to ruins...
today that "defeated","ruined" Russia sending mission to moon...
how possible?
Eastmann
good luck rebiata.
poexali!
ian
Positive news about Russia, how odd.
Of course positive only in the sense that there seems no negative spin on the reporting, just objective narration, which is how news reporting should be
Strangerland
I agree. We can talk about how pathetic Russia is for invading Ukraine in the comments. 72-hour war my a$$.
JJE
Actually the Tiangong space station is a permanently manned station operated by China.
However the China and Russia space programs are cooperating much more closely. Luna 25 is part of the International Lunar Research Station program, announced in 2021, which will see a China/Russia moon base established in conjunction with other countries who wish to participate. So far the UAE, Pakistan and Venezuela have signed on with Malaysia and others getting onboard soon.
Keep in mind these countries have been locked out by the US in other programs.
Even more controversial are the so-called Artemis Accords, which the US is using to unilaterally bypass the Outer Space Treaty, under the aegis of "partners" who have been collared into colluding, that seeks to commercialize and privatize space resources for US private companies and Uncle Sam - like they have a special right to take their neo-colonialist attitude into space.
A new space race is on!
kintsugi
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
And let me see what spring is like on
A-Jupiter and Mars.
Count Basie/Frank Sinatra
OssanAmerica
So we can expect Russia to be annexing the Moon soon?
Peter14
No, it is not!
The majority of modules are not Russian, and the US has two more modules than Russia making it if anything a US space station shared with European nations and Japan.
JJE
Let's not forget that since the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 and the subsequent suspension of the STS program (with the loss of two out of five shuttles and fourteen crew for a Vehicle Failure Rate of 40%) saw the Russian Soyuz MS orbital vehicle almost exclusively resupply and exclusively re-crew the ISS for almost 20 years.
Peter14
A gold star for the 1960's designed Soyuz capsule, a much simpler and less capable craft than the US space shuttles that were used over and over again, not just once.
The point of the ISS was and remains cooperation in space. Its longevity is a credit to all who have participated and contributed over decades.
It is only the fact Russia made itself a pariah by invading a European neighbor causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions misplaced and it continues after a year and a half, that the cooperation has become untenable going forward.
It is Russia that is ending the friendly cooperation that has allowed such great scientific advances in space over the past decades. It seems invasion beats cooperation for Russia. Such a shame.
JJE
It's a shame that this standard doesn't apply to all.
theFu
It's a shame that this standard doesn't apply to all.
It apples where it is necessary.
La vie douce
This is obviously fake news. Russian economy is near bankrupt and since last year Russia run out of missiles and rockets to fire at Ukraine, let alone the moon. So said the JT war experts, it was a 'fact 'apparently. Therefore this is clearly another Russian lie.
theFu
Russia needs some misdirection for the home crowd so they aren't constantly shown the poor performance of Putin's folly in Ukraine. Space for peaceful uses is always good for the home audience. Uplifting. Interesting. And a distraction from their daily lives of funerals.