Tonight from the East, the Soyuz-2.1b rocket, filled with naphthyl, took the Luna-25 spacecraft into the sky - thus started the first mission in the history of modern Russia to study the moon.
Today at 02:10:57 Moscow time, Soyuz-2.1b launched from pad 1C of the Vostochny cosmodrome with the Fregat upper stage and the Luna-25 automatic station.
The rocket worked as planned. Approximately an hour after the launch, Luna-25 separated from the Fregat booster - it put the automatic station on a trajectory for a flight to the Moon.
The automatic station's departure to a near-moon circular orbit at an altitude of 100 km is scheduled for August 16, and its soft landing on the surface of Earth's natural satellite is expected on August 21 in the area to the north of the Boguslavsky crater (center of the ellipse coordinates are 69.5450 degrees of south latitude and 43.5440 degrees of east longitude).
Luna-25 effectively restarted the national lunar program. It will be followed by others. And the head of Roscosmos, Yury Borisov, told when to expect new launches.
2027 is Luna-26, 2028 is Luna-27, and in 2030 or after 2030 is Luna-28.
After that, a completely new stage of lunar exploitation will begin for Russia, and it will be carried out in cooperation with China.
Together with colleagues from China, we will move to a new phase - the possibility of manned visits to the Moon and the construction of a lunar base. This is a long-term key program, to which, we hope, many countries will join.