Russia is getting back into the aerospace race. It launched, this Friday, August 11, its first probe to the Moon in nearly 50 years, a mission intended to give new impetus to its space sector, which has been in difficulty for years and isolated due to the conflict in Ukraine.
The launch of the Luna-25 probe is the first lunar mission for Moscow since 1976, when the USSR was a pioneer in the conquest of space. A star that has faded due to funding problems and corruption scandals.
Lunar orbit in five days
The Soyuz rocket carrying this probe of nearly 800 kilograms took off at the scheduled time at 02:10 Moscow time (2310 GMT) from the Vostotchny cosmodrome in the Far East, carried by a Soyuz rocket, according to images broadcast live by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The craft rose in a plume of smoke and flame under a gray sky. It must reach lunar orbit in five days, on which it will then spend between three and seven days to choose the right place before landing in the lunar south pole area. According to a source within Roscosmos contacted by AFP, the agency plans a landing of the probe around August 21.
“For the first time in history the moon landing will be carried out on the lunar south pole. Until now, everyone landed in the equatorial zone”, welcomed a senior official of Roscosmos, Alexandre Blokhine, in a recent interview with the official Rossiïskaïa Gazeta newspaper.
Roscosmos is deprived of its partnerships with the West
The probe, which will have to stay on the Moon for a year, will have the mission of “taking (samples) and analyzing the soil”, as well as “carrying out long-term scientific research”, the space agency further indicated.
This launch is the first mission of the new Russian lunar program, which starts when Roscosmos is deprived of its partnerships with the West. As with its diplomatic orientation, Moscow is thus seeking to develop space cooperation with China.
The ambitions are high: according to Russian space expert Vitali Yegorov, this is the first time that post-Soviet Russia has attempted to place a device on a celestial body. “The biggest question will be: can it land?”, he explained to AFP, stressing that this mission is “of great importance” for Russia.
President Vladimir Putin has promised to continue Russia’s space program despite sanctions, citing the example of the USSR sending the first man into space in 1961, amid escalating East-West tensions. “We are guided by the ambition of our ancestors to move forward, despite the difficulties and external attempts to prevent us from doing so,” Vladimir Putin said, speaking at the Vostochny cosmodrome last year.
A risky mission
Still, the Luna-25 mission is “risky”, by the very admission of the boss of Roscosmos Yuri Borissov. “The probability of success of such missions is estimated at around 70%,” he told Vladimir Putin during a meeting in June.
The first stage of the Soyuz launcher must fall in the vicinity of the village of Chakhtinski, in the Khabarovsk region in the Far East. The authorities announced the evacuation of its inhabitants from Friday morning.
The last Soviet mission to the Moon in 1976, Luna-24, brought soil samples back to Earth.