Russia seeks to return to the Moon after almost 50-year break
Russia is set to return to the moon after nearly 50 years by sending an uncrewed lander toward the lunar south pole, joining a race with NASA and other space agencies.
With a launch scheduled out of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's far east around 2 a.m. Moscow time, or 7 p.m. in New York on Thursday, Luna-25 will be competing with India's Chandrayaan-3, which is orbiting the moon and is also likely to attempt to touch down near the pole in late August. Whichever country lands first could receive the title for being the first to land a spacecraft intact on or near this region.
The lunar south pole is a highly coveted target among space-faring nations, including the US and China. Sensors from various lunar spacecraft have found evidence of water ice in craters in this region. Engineers and scientists have proposed the possibility of prospecting and maybe even mining this water ice in the future, for use in future lunar exploration and maybe even as a source of rocket fuel.
Getting Luna-25 safely to the moon would provide a much-needed boost for Russian space agency Roscosmos, which has struggled in recent years from low funding, controversial leadership and poor execution, without seeing much advancement beyond sending people and satellites to low-Earth orbit.
The USSR was the first country to land a spacecraft on the moon, but Russia all but abandoned lunar exploration after the last Soviet moon mission, a robotic probe in 1976.
Luna-25's success is far from guaranteed, especially as numerous moon exploration missions have struggled to land intact on the lunar surface in recent years. In April, a lander operated by the Japanese company ispace crashed into the moon during a landing attempt, coming in too fast for
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