The last Soviet interplanetary automatic station was Luna-24, launched in 1976. Russia in its history has not yet sent a spacecraft to the moon.
"Therefore, the name of our spacecraft - the Luna-25 - continues the count of domestic lunar missions of the last century. The main launch date is scheduled for 1 October, the backup date is 30 October 2021", Igor Mitrofanov, head of the nuclear planetology department at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said.
According to Mitrofanov, two Moon regions were selected for landing in the vicinity of the lunar south pole.
Previously, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said that the Luna-26 spacecraft would fly to the Moon in 2024 to map and remotely study its surface. The obtained data will help determine the composition of the lunar surface.