Russia Is to Launch Its First Mission to the Moon in Almost 50 Years

LONDON (AP) — Russia is scheduled to launch its first mission to the moon in almost 50 years on Friday, pitting it in an area race with India which can be aiming to land a lunar craft this month.

The launch of the Luna-25 craft to the moon shall be Russia’s first since 1976 when it was a part of the Soviet Union and shall be performed with out help from the European Area Company, which ended cooperation with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian lunar lander is anticipated to succeed in the moon on Aug. 23, about the identical day as an Indian craft which was launched on July 14.

Each international locations’ modules are headed for the lunar south pole, an space the place no spacecraft has landed easily. Solely three governments have managed profitable moon landings: the Soviet Union, the USA and China.

Roscosmos, Russia’s area company, stated it needs to indicate Russia “is a state able to delivering a payload to the moon,” and “guarantee Russia’s assured entry to the moon’s floor.”

“Research of the moon just isn’t the aim,” stated Vitaly Egorov, a preferred Russian area analyst. “The aim is political competitors between two superpowers — China and the USA — and a variety of different international locations which additionally wish to declare the title of area superpower.”

Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it tougher for it to entry Western expertise, impacting its area program. The Luna-25 was initially meant to hold a small moon rover however that concept was deserted to scale back the load of the craft for improved reliability, analysts say.

“International electronics are lighter, home electronics are heavier,” Egorov stated. “Whereas scientists might need the duty of finding out lunar water, for Roscosmos the primary job is just to land on the moon. To recuperate misplaced Soviet experience and learn to carry out this job in a brand new period.”

The Luna-25 shall be launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East. The spaceport is a pet mission of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is vital to his efforts to make Russia an area superpower and transfer Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

It’s unclear if Putin will attend the launch of the lunar lander. In 2016, he was current on the failed launch of a Soyuz rocket, after which Russian media reported he critically rebuked officers.

A earlier Indian try to land on the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s floor.

The lunar south pole is of specific curiosity to scientists, who consider the completely shadowed polar craters might comprise water. The frozen water within the rocks could possibly be reworked by future explorers into air and rocket gas.

“The moon is essentially untouched and the entire historical past of the moon is written on its face,” stated Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at Britain’s Royal Observatory, Greenwich. “It’s pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It’s its personal laboratory.”

The Luna-25 is to take samples of moon rock and mud. The samples are essential to understanding the moon’s setting forward of constructing any base there, “in any other case we could possibly be constructing issues and having to close them down six months later as a result of every little thing has successfully been sand-blasted,” Bloomer stated.

Related Press writers Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this story.

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