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Russia will launch its first lunar landing spacecraft in 47 years on Friday in a race with India to the south pole of the moon, a potential source of water to support a future human presence there, Reuters reports
The launch from the Vostochny cosmodrome, 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow, will take place four weeks after India sent up its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander, due to touch down at the pole on August 23.
With the lunar mission, Russia’s first since 1976, Moscow is seeking to restart and build on the Soviet Union’s pioneering space programme.
The launch is the first mission of Moscow’s new lunar project and comes as President Vladimir Putin looks to strengthen cooperation in space with China after ties with the West broke down following the start of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine last year.
Russian space agency Roscosmos said in reply to questions from Reuters that its Luna-25 spacecraft would 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 near the pole – a timetable that implies it could match or narrowly beat its Indian rival to the moon’s surface.
Roscosmos said the two missions would not get in each other’s way because they have different landing areas planned.
“There is no danger that they interfere with each other or collide. There is enough space for everyone on the moon,” it said.
Chandrayaan-3 is due to run experiments for two weeks, while Luna-25 will work on the moon for a year. In April, Japan’s ispace (9348.T) failed in an attempt to make the first moon landing by a private space company.
With a mass of 1.8 tons and carying 31 kg (68 pounds) of scientific equipment, Luna-25 will use a scoop to take rock samples from a depth of up to 15 cm (6 inches) to test for the presence of frozen water that could support human life.