On Friday, a Soyuz 2.1v rocket carrying the Luna-25 rover was launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome near Moscow. The moon landing is scheduled for August 21.
The launch of the rocket took place at 2:10 Moscow time. The target of the rocket-carried lander is the south pole of the moon. The Russians want to land on a hitherto unexplored part of the moon. Luna-25 will conduct research for a year.
According to Roskosmos, it takes five days to reach the moon’s orbit. Then, after five to seven days, the ship will approach one of three selected locations near the pole.
Country where no one has ever been
“From a scientific point of view, the most important task is, simply put, landing where no one else has landed,” said Maksim Litvak, head of the group preparing the scientific equipment for the mission.
So far, no one has managed to land softly on the south pole of the moon. In recent years, the United States, China, India, Japan and the European Union have tried this. Israel’s 2019 mission failed, as did Tokyo’s attempt last year. Landing is complicated by unfriendly terrain. The incentive to try is the ability to find ice cream.
– There are traces of ice in the bottom of the Luna-25 landing area; this can be deduced from orbital data, Litvak noted. Weighing 1.8 tons and 31 kg of scientific equipment, Luna-25 will use a bucket to collect rock samples from a depth of up to 15 cm to test for the presence of frozen water.
Overtake India on the moon
Landing on the moon on August 21, the Russians will slightly overtake the Indians. The Indian rover Chandrayaan-3 entered lunar orbit on Sunday. Landing at the South Pole is scheduled for August 23.
“Russia’s aspirations for the moon are related to many different things. I think it is primarily an expression of national power on the world stage,” Asif Siddiqi, a history professor at Fordham University, told Reuters.
The current mission to the moon is the first in the history of the Russian Federation and the first sent from Moscow since the 1976 Soviet mission.
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
