RAS member Litvak: the launch of the Luna-25 station will provide Russia with leadership in the “space race” said that the launch in 2022 of the interplanetary station “Luna-25” will help Russia to get ahead in the “lunar race”, RIA Novosti reports.
At a meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences on space, Litvak predicted Russia's leadership in the “space race.” In his opinion, the Luna-25 mission will provide the country with the first positions in this area.
“If this mission is realized, then here we will be able to get ahead not only of the Chinese, but also of other contenders of this lunar race. In the next few years, there are no such Chinese analogues yet, “the member of the Russian Academy of Sciences emphasized.
Earlier, the launch of the Russian” Luna-25 “was officially postponed until July 2022. This was announced by Dmitry Rogozin, general director of Roscosmos. At the same time, earlier the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Yuri Balegi, announced that there was not enough time to complete the preparation of the apparatus.
The launch of “Luna-25” is planned from the Vostochny cosmodrome by a carrier rocket “Soyuz-2.1b” with an upper stage ” Frigate”. Work on Luna-25 (originally named Luna-Glob) began in 2005. The probe was originally set to launch in 2014, but the decision to replace the launch vehicle led to the first postponement of the launch. The last Soviet mission to the Moon (Luna-24), during which soil samples were delivered to Earth from a satellite, took place in 1976.