After 50 years since the last mission launched into space, Russia returned to the race to conquer the Moon and, this time wants to become the first country in history to land on the south pole of the Earth’s satellite. It was early Friday morning, when the Soyuz-2.1b rocket, with the Luna-25 probe inside, lifted off from the Vostochny space base in Russia’s far east, bound for the Moon.
Nearly half a century has passed since the last robotic mission Russia launched to the Moon. The country led and governed by Vladimir Putin seeks to position itself again as a power in the space race, amid a war against Ukraine, which is still ongoing.
The Soviet Union was the first country in history to reach space and, for decades, waged an unlimited space competition with the United States. But it was the American country that was the first to reach the Moon with a crew.
After being the spearhead of the space race, Russia fell into a huge pause due to the fall of the Soviet Union and financing problems for many years, and now they want to resume their program to conquer the cosmos.
🌕 Back to the Moon!
🇷🇺 Russia launched a historic lunar mission, as its #Luna25 craft blasted off into space from #Vostochny cosmodrome without a hitch.
The probe is to help fine-tune Russian soft-landing technology, and conduct studies in the south pole of Earth's satellite. pic.twitter.com/rVC9YuQixr
— Russia 🇷🇺 (@Russia) August 11, 2023
Russia expects the Soyuz-2.1b rocket to reach the Moon’s orbit in five days and will then spend three to seven days orbiting before selecting the best place to land on the Moon’s south pole. With this, if everything goes as expected and successfully, Russia will become the first country to reach that side of the Moon.
“For the first time in history, there will be a lunar landing at the lunar south pole. Until now, everyone has landed on the equatorial zone,” Alexander Blokhin explained in an interview with the official Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.
Russia’s space mission on the Moon aims to develop lunar landing technology, take samples from the surface and study the upper layer of the lunar regolith, from its relief to its composition and solidity, and also to analyze its exosphere.
In addition to becoming the first country to land on the satellite’s south pole, Russia also wants to be a pioneer in finding water on the Moon, something it hopes to do with the probe it has just sent. On its last lunar mission, which took place in 1976, the Luna-24 probe brought back soil samples.
The launch of the Soyuz-2.1b rocket, this Friday at dawn, with the Luna-25 probe took place just a few days before India launches its own, with which it seeks to position itself on the map of the most important nations in today’s space race.
This story was written in Spanish by Eduardo Vega in Cultura Colectiva News
