The Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with the Fregat upper stage and the Luna-25 station launched today from the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur Region, MIR 24 reports.
The launch was made at 02:11 Moscow time. The station will fly to the moon for five and a half days. On approaching the Earth's satellite, the device will make a braking impulse and enter a circular near-polar orbit, the height of which is 100 kilometers. There the station will work from three to seven days, after which the lunar landing will begin.
If the launch is successful, then Luna-25 will become the first device to reach the moon in the history of modern Russia. The previous station, Luna-24, was launched in 1976. She delivered 170 grams of lunar soil to Earth.
As noted in the source, "Luna-25" will also be the first station to land on the moon in the South Pole region, which is characterized by difficult terrain. All her predecessors landed in the equator zone. The device, equipped with scientific equipment weighing 31 kilograms, should land north of the Boguslavsky crater.
The main objective of the mission is to work out the basic technologies for a soft landing in the circumpolar region and to conduct contact studies of a certain area of the South Pole of the Moon.
