Russia launches Luna-25 its first moon mission in 50 years, ISRO congratulates

A rocket carrying a lunar landing craft blasted off Friday on Russia’s first moon mission in nearly 50 years, racing to land on Earth’s satellite ahe of an Indian spacecraft.

launch from Russia’s Vostochny spaceport in Far East of Luna-25 craft to moon is Russia’s first since 1976 when it was part of Soviet Union.

Russian lunar lander is expected to reach moon on Aug. 23, about same day as an Indian craft which was launched on July 14. Russian spacecraft will take about 5.5 days to travel to moon’s vicinity, n spend three to seven days orbiting at about 100 kilometers (62 miles) before heing for surface.

Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: Soviet Union, United States and China. India and Russia are aiming to be first to land at moon’s south pole.

Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said it wants to show Russia “is a state capable of delivering a paylo to moon,” and “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to moon’s surface.”

“Study of moon is not goal,” said Vitaly Egorov, a popular Russian space analyst. “ goal is political competition between two superpowers — China and USA — and a number of or countries which also want to claim title of space superpower.”

Sanctions imposed on Russia after it inved Ukraine make it harder for it to access Western technology, impacting its space program. Luna-25 was initially meant to carry a small moon rover but that idea was abandoned to reduce weight of craft for improved reliability, analysts say.

“Foreign electronics are lighter, domestic electronics are heavier,” Egorov said. “While scientists might have task of studying lunar water, for Roscosmos main task is simply to land on moon — to recover lost Soviet expertise and learn how to perform this task in a new era.”

Luna-25 launched flawlessly from Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, according to video feed from Roscosmos.

spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vlimir Putin and is key to his efforts to make Russia a space superpower and move Russian launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A previous Indian attempt to land at moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when lander crashed into moon’s surface.

 lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe permanently showed polar craters may contain water. frozen water in rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.

“ moon is largely untouched and whole history of moon is written on its face,” said Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at Britain’s Royal Observatory, Greenwich. “It is pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It is its own laboratory.”

Luna-25 is to take samples of moon rock and dust. samples are crucial to understanding moon’s environment ahe of building any base re, “orwise we could be building things and having to shut m down six months later because everything has effectively been sand-blasted,” Bloomer said.