Russia to launch first probe towards the Moon since 1976 – 07/08/2023 – Science
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Russia on Friday will launch its first lunar landing spacecraft in 47 years since 1976, in a race against India to reach the moon’s south pole, a potential source of water to sustain a future human presence on the moon. Natural.
The launch at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, 5,550 kilometers east of Moscow, will come four weeks after India sends its Chandrayaan-3 lunar module, due to land on Aug. 23.
Russian space agency Roscosmos said in response to Reuters that its Luna-25 spacecraft will take five days to fly to the Moon and then spend five to seven days in lunar orbit before descending on one of three possible landing sites – a timeline that suggests it could match or narrowly beat its Indian rival on the Moon’s surface.
Roscosmos said the two missions would not interfere with each other because they have different landing areas planned.
“There is no danger that they will interfere or collide. There is enough space for everyone on the moon,” he said.
Chandrayaan-3 is expected to carry out experiments for two weeks, while Luna-25 will work on the Moon for a year.
With a mass of 1.8 tonnes and carrying 31 kilograms of scientific equipment, Luna-25 will use a shovel to collect rock samples up to 15 cm deep to test for the presence of water ice that could support human life.
“The Moon is Earth’s seventh continent, so we are simply ‘condemned’, so to speak, to tame it,” said Lev Zeleny, a space researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The launch, originally planned for October 2021, has been delayed by nearly two years. The European Space Agency had planned to test its Pilot-D navigation camera by connecting it to the spacecraft, but severed ties with the project after Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.
Residents of a village in Russia’s far east will be evacuated from their homes at 7:30 am on Friday because of a “chance in a million” that one of the stages of the rocket that launches Luna-25 could fall to Earth, an official said. local authority.
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