Russia is racing a lunar rocket from India to see which country will reach the moon's south pole first.
India Hopes to Boost Its Space Legacy With Latest Moon Rocket Blastoff
At first, there wasn’t going to be any race at all. Luna 25 had been scheduled for launch in October 2021, but first, technical snafus slowed things down. Then the war in Ukraine did too: The European Space Agency , had planned to include a navigation camera aboard the spacecraft, but pulled out of the deal after the Russian invasion. That left Roscosmos to scramble for a replacement component, which delayed the launch further.
At last Luna 25 is on the pad, scheduled to be launched in the early hours of Friday morning from Russia’s new—indeed, still-under-construction—in the country’s far-eastern Amur Oblast region. The rocket that will carry the spacecraft is one of the country’s workhorse Soyuz boosters. The Soyuz brand has a reputation for flying true, and the hope is that this one will too, because it will be lofting an impressive payload.
Luna 25 weighs 1,750 kg fully fueled, and is a two-stage ship. The bottom stage carries the vehicle’s four landing legs, its engine, and propellant tanks. The upper stage is a much more complicated piece of hardware.
"The Luna-25 will practice soft landing, take and analyze soil samples, and conduct long-term scientific research,"
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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