Ahead of an Indian spacecraft racing to land on Earth’s satellite, a rocket carrying a lunar landing craft blasted on Friday on Russia’s first Moon mission in around 50 years.
After 1976 Russia was part of the Soviet Union, the launch from Russia’s Vostochny spaceport in the Far East of the Luna – 25 was carried to the Moon.
On August 23, the Russian lunar lander is predicted to reach the Moon, about the same day an Indian craft launched on July 14. Moreover, before heading for the surface, the Russian spacecraft will take around 5.5 days to travel to the vicinity of the Moon and then will spend three to seven days orbiting at 100km.
Only three governments have successfully managed landings on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the US, and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the first to land at the south pole of the Moon.
Moreover, Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said it wants to show Russia ” is a state capable of delivering a payload to the Moon and ” ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the Moon’s surface.”
Vitaly Egorov, a famous Russian space analyst, said, ” Study if the Moon is not the goal, the goal is political competition between two superpowers China and the US – and several other countries which also want to claim the title of spacepower.”
Further, Egorov said foreign electronics are lighter, domestic electronics are heavier, and though scientists might have the task of studying lunar water, for Roscosmos, the main task is to land on the Moon, recover lost Soviet expertise, and learn how to perform this task in a new era”.
According to a video feed from Roscosmos, the Luna-25 launched flawlessly from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Far East Russia.
However, the lunar south pole is particularly interesting to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water.
Moreover, an astronomer Ed Bloomer, at Britain’s Royal Observatory, Greenwich, said, ” “the Moon is largely untouched, and the whole history of the Moon is written on its face; it is pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It is its laboratory”.
Bloomer further added that the Luna -25 is to take samples of moon rock and dust. The pieces are essential to understand the environment of the Moon ahead of building any base there, ” otherwise we could be building things and having to shut them down six months later because everything has effectively been sand-blasted.”
