2023-08-10 23:35:07
Russia launched the Luna-25 spacecraft on Friday for the first time in almost 50 years to fly to the moon. The space apparatus is to land at the south pole of the moon and search for water, among other things. The Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket took off as planned from the new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur region at 9.10 a.m. local time (1.10 a.m. CEST), was shown in a live transmission by the Russian space agency Roskosmos. Everything is in the normal range, they said.
The travel time to the Earth’s satellite is four and a half days. Because of technical problems, this first mission since 1976 had been postponed. Actually, the probe should have been on the way for a long time. The first planned launch date of a lunar probe was 2012, the last time May 2022 was targeted.
“Luna-25” is part of the Russian lunar program. This envisages building a space station on the celestial body by 2040. Russia is thus building on its Soviet “Luna” program, in which space probes also brought moon rocks to Earth.
“Luna-25” should now help to develop a technology for a soft landing. To do this, the probe should collect and analyze soil samples from the moon. The planned investigations also include a study of the surface layers in the area of the south pole of the moon.
In the Far Eastern region of Khabarovsk, the authorities had announced an evacuation of the village of Shakhtinsky for Friday (local time) before the planned launch of the rocket because the first rocket stage of the Soyuz might hit there. Roskosmos originally worked with the European space agency Esa on the Russian lunar program. However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than 17 months ago, ESA ended cooperation with Moscow.
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