Preparations for the launch of the Luna-25 mission to the Moon from the Vostochny spaceport are proceeding as scheduled, Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday.
"The work is proceeding according to plan and we have no setbacks. We must achieve the launch readiness by September in order to get into a launch window that opens for us on October 1 and will exist until October 30," the Roscosmos chief said.
"These are a complex vehicle and a complex launch. For the first time in the world, we are going to launch a probe to the Moon’s southern pole. That is why, the developers are carefully preparing for that. So far, we have no fears that we may fail to get into this launch window. This is a historic event for the entire industry," TASS cited Rogozin as saying.
The Russian Luna-25 probe, which is a follow-up of Soviet stations of this series, will open Russia’s long-term lunar program that envisages missions for studying the Moon from the orbit and the surface, collecting and delivering lunar soil to Earth.
Roscosmos plans to send the Luna-25 automatic station to the Moon in October 2021. The Luna-25 will become the first domestic spacecraft in the country’s modern history on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite. Roscosmos has chosen October 1 as the basic and October 30 as the backup date for the spacecraft’s launch.
