Luna-25: Launch of First Lunar Mission in Modern Russian History

The launch took place at 2:10 Moscow time. At 2:20 the Fregat upper stage with the Lunar Module separated from the third stage of the booster rocket.

According to the developer of Luna-25, the flight of the station to the Moon on a regular program will take from 4.5 to 5.5 days. After the landing, the mission will collect lunar soil samples and examine them for the presence of ice.

Luna-25 is part of the Russian lunar program for the exploration and practical use of the Moon and its orbit to establish a fully automated lunar base.

Check out Sputnik's gallery to see how the Luna-25 mission was launched.

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The Luna-25 station was created using a fully Russian element base and the latest achievements in the field of space instrumentation.

Above: Delivery of the Luna-25 automatic station to the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

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The primary mission is to practice basic soft-landing technologies in the near-Polar region and to conduct contact studies of the lunar South Pole.

Above: Launch of the Soyuz-2.1b booster rocket with the Fregat upper stage and the Luna-25 automatic station from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

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The module is scheduled to enter lunar orbit at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) on August 16 and make a soft landing at Moon's South Pole in the area north of the Boguslawsky crater on August 21.

Above: Broadcast of the launch of the Soyuz-2.1b booster rocket with the Fregat upper stage and the Luna-25 automatic station from the Vostochny Cosmodrome at the Cosmos pavilion of the national exhibition center in the northern part of Moscow, Russia (VDNKh).

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Russia's Luna-26 automatic landing module will be launched to the Moon in 2027, the Luna-27 mission will fly to Earth's only natural satellite in 2028 and the Luna-28 module will take off after 2030, Yuri Borisov, the head of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said.

Above: Launch of the Soyuz-2.1b booster rocket with the Fregat upper stage and the Luna-25 automatic station.

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Once the spacecraft lands, Luna-25's scientific work on the surface will begin and is expected to last a year.

Above: Launch of the Soyuz-2.1b booster rocket with the Fregat upper stage and the Luna-25 automatic station from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

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