Luna-25 Spacecraft Made Adjustments While Attempting to Prepare for Landing on Lunar Surface

Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft adjusted its orbit on Friday as it prepares to attempt its first landing near the moon’s south pole, the Russian space agency said.

Today at 09:20 Moscow time (11:50 am IST), the automatic station propulsion system performed an orbit correction lasting 40 seconds, the goal of which was to provide the best conditions for the subsequent construction of the pre-landing orbit,” the Russian space agency said in a statement. said in a statement.

It is said that the adjustment process went smoothly, and the systems and communications on the spacecraft are functioning normally. The space agency also released images of the Moon shared by Luna-25 on Aug. 17.

Luna-25 shared first photo of lunar surface on Aug. 17
Image credit: Telegram/Roscosmos

Luna-25 is scheduled to land on Aug. 21, Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov said last week.

An Indian spacecraft, Chandrayaan-3, is also orbiting the moon and preparing to land near the South Pole, where scientists believe there is a large amount of frozen water that could support a human presence there in the future.

The success of Russia’s first mission to the moon in 47 years depends largely on Russia, which is trying to prove it is still a leader in space exploration despite the high cost of the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions designed to limit its access to technology.

Luna-25 was launched on August 11, 2023 aboard a Soyuz 2.1v rocket from the Vostok spaceport in Ruusia. The lander is expected to land on the moon on August 21. ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3, on the other hand, was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on an LVM-3 rocket. The lander is expected to touch down on the lunar surface on August 23.