Russia Is About To Launch Its First Moon Rocket In Nearly 50 Years

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The last time Russia sent a spacecraft to the moon, Gerald Ford was in the White House, Elton John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” was the U.S.’s number one hit, and a gallon of gas cost ¢0.57. That spacecraft, Luna 24, lifted off on Aug. 9, 1976, landed in the moon’s Mare Crisium (Sea of Crisis), and returned to Earth on Aug. 22, 1976, carrying 170 gm (6 oz.) of lunar soil. Oh, and it actually wasn’t Russia that launched Luna 24 at all; it was the Soviet Union, which still had 15 years to live before its ultimate fall on Dec. 25, 1991.
This Friday, Aug. 11, after an interregnum of 47 years, a spacecraft launched from the former-Soviet, current-Russian nation hopes to at last return to the moon. The ship, Luna 25, will aim to make history by becoming the first spacecraft from any country to land in the moon’s south pole.  The region is considered prime real estate for future human explorers, since it is believed to harbor abundant deposits of water ice in permanently shadowed craters. The ice could be harvested and melted down for drinking water, oxygen, and even hydrogen-oxygen rocket fuel.

But Luna 25 is in a foot race for the first-to-the-south-pole honor. On July 14, India launched its Chandrayaan 3 lunar rover, which is targeting the same region of the moon but taking a more roundabout route to get there—flying a series of ever-widening orbits around the Earth until it reaches the vicinity of the moon—as opposed to Luna 25’s faster, more as-the-crow-flies trajectory. Both Chandrayaan 3 and Luna 25 are anticipating landing on or about Aug. 23. But anything from delays in Luna 25’s countdown to technical problems that change the timing of Chandrayaan 3’s lunar descent could throw things off. 
While both countries would like the bragging rights of being first, neither is worried about one mission getting in the way of the other. "There is no danger that they interfere with each other or collide,” Roscosmos—Russia’s NASA—said in a statement. “There is enough space for everyone on the moon."


Source: Time Magazine