The repeat mission "Luna-25" will be relatively inexpensive, but it will still require significant costs. Alexander Zheleznyak, an expert in the field of rocket and space technology, shared his thoughts with RIA Novosti. Last week, Roscosmos reported that it is considering the possibility of repeating the mission to land on the South Pole in 2025-2026.
I would call the figure 4-5 billion. First, considering that much has already been developed. Perhaps it will be necessary to adjust something in light of lessons learned, but this will not be so fundamental
Alexander Zheleznyak
According to the expert's calculations, the creation of the first "Luna-25" cost Roscosmos 12.6 billion rubles. Despite the mistakes that led to the failure of the mission, it will not be necessary to start from scratch when working on the second such station. The new station should be built much faster, and the costs associated with the manufacture of the "Moon-25" version 2.0 will be, in the opinion of the expert, much less.
The emergency commission to investigate the causes of the failure in the work of the first "Luna-25" began its work on August 21, on the day when the station was supposed to have successfully landed according to the plan. Recall, communication with the spacecraft "Luna-25" was lost on August 19. It was then revealed that it crashed into the surface of the Moon. The director general of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, speaking about the preliminary reasons for the failure, called it a mistake to increase the operating time of the correction engine - it continued to work 127 seconds instead of the planned 84, which led to the accident. The results of the commission's work will be taken into account when implementing the following missions.
The Japanese module SLIM has also not yet reached the surface of the Moon. The launch of the Japanese carrier rocket H2A was postponed today due to weather conditions at the spaceport. The date of the next launch is still unknown, but it is stated in the plans that SLIM should make a soft landing on the Moon by September 15. In case of success, Japan will become the fifth state after the USSR, USA, China, and India to successfully reach the surface of the Moon. It is reported that the module can land on the Moon with high accuracy - the landing error does not exceed 100 meters. Inside the Japanese module is a special camera capable of measuring the amount of iron and other elements in the materials of the lunar surface.
In April of this year, the Japanese company Ispace launched the Hakuto-R module, which was conceived as the world's first privately developed apparatus capable of landing on the Moon. However, communication with the module was lost, presumably because it collided with the lunar surface and crashed.
Meanwhile, "Chandrayaan-3", the first Indian lunar ship that made a soft landing on the South Pole of the Moon on August 23, is already reporting very interesting results of research. It turned out that the temperature of the surface of the Earth's natural satellite at the South Pole is 70 degrees Celsius, instead of the 20 or 30 degrees expected by scientists.
As part of the ChaSTE (Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment) experiment, the temperature profile of the top layer of the lunar surface near the pole was measured to understand how heat changes on the surface of the Moon. A probe with a thermometer was placed at a depth of -10 cm. The thermometer itself is equipped with 10 separate temperature sensors. Detailed observations continue.