Russia’s Roscosmos space agency has posted a video showing the Luna-25 space station performing ground tests in a lab. As seen in the projected footage, the station’s bucket will be used to collect lunar soil after the craft lands on the Moon.
"We collect soil from the surface layer which is located at the depth of 15-30 centimetres. So there is no drilling rig on board. We are not going to bring any samples to Earth, all analysis is done on-site," the chief designer of the project Pavel Kazmerchuk says.
The Luna-25 space station will be the first Russian first space vehicle sent to the Moon since 1976.
The launch is scheduled for 1 October 2021. Russia's first modern lunar lander will be powered off from Vostochny Cosmodrome by a Soyuz-2-1b rocket. Luna-25 is expected to reach the Moon's south pole 10 days later.