TALLINN, Estonia, 11 Aug (AP) \u2014 A rocket carrying a lunar landing craft blasted off Friday on Russia\u2019s first moon mission in nearly 50 years, racing to land on Earth\u2019s satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft.<\/p>\n
The launch from Russia\u2019s Vostochny spaceport in the Far East of the Luna-25 craft to the moon is Russia\u2019s first since 1976 when it was part of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
The Russian lunar lander is expected to reach the moon on Aug. 23, about the same day as an Indian craft which was launched on July 14. The Russian spacecraft will take about 5.5 days to travel to the moon\u2019s vicinity, then spend three to seven days orbiting at about 100 kilometers (62 miles) before heading for the surface.<\/p>\n
Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the first to land at the moon\u2019s south pole.<\/p>\n
Roscosmos, Russia\u2019s space agency, said it wants to show Russia \u201cis a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon,\u201d and \u201censure Russia\u2019s guaranteed access to the moon\u2019s surface.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStudy of the moon is not the goal,\u201d said Vitaly Egorov, a popular Russian space analyst. \u201cThe goal is political competition between two superpowers \u2014 China and the USA \u2014 and a number of other countries which also want to claim the title of space superpower.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it harder for it to access Western technology, impacting its space program. The Luna-25 was initially meant to carry a small moon rover but that idea was abandoned to reduce the weight of the craft for improved reliability, analysts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cForeign electronics are lighter, domestic electronics are heavier,\u201d Egorov said. \u201cWhile scientists might have the task of studying lunar water, for Roscosmos the main task is simply to land on the moon \u2014 to recover lost Soviet expertise and learn how to perform this task in a new era.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Luna-25 launched flawlessly from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia\u2019s Far East, according to video feed from Roscosmos.<\/p>\n
The spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is key to his efforts to make Russia a space superpower and move Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n
A previous Indian attempt to land at the moon\u2019s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n
The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moon is largely untouched and the whole history of the moon is written on its face,\u201d said Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at Britain\u2019s Royal Observatory, Greenwich. \u201cIt is pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It is its own laboratory.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Luna-25 is to take samples of moon rock and dust. The samples are crucial to understanding the moon\u2019s environment ahead of building any base there, \u201cotherwise we could be building things and having to shut them down six months later because everything has effectively been sand-blasted,\u201d Bloomer said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TALLINN, Estonia, 11 Aug (AP) \u2014 A rocket carrying a lunar landing craft blasted off Friday on Russia\u2019s first moon mission in nearly 50 years, racing to land on Earth\u2019s satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft. The launch from Russia\u2019s Vostochny spaceport in the Far East of the Luna-25 craft to the moon is Russia\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-222163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}