New lunar race – Vedomosti

On Friday night, the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with the Luna-25 automatic station was launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome. This is the first lunar mission in the history of modern Russia. The station is to make a soft landing at the beginning of the 20th of August and conduct a year-long scientific research in the region of the South Pole of the Moon.

In recent years, interest in the Moon from various countries has increased markedly. Does this mean full-fledged colonization of the moon and the beginning of a race for useful resources – or are countries just chasing the prestigious status of a space superpower, as during the lunar race of the last century?

The USSR and the USA launched stations to Venus and Mars, studied Halley’s comet, but in the 1960s-1970s. accumulated so much data about the moon that they ceased to be interested in it. In 1976, the Soviet automatic station “Luna-24” delivered soil from the Moon to Earth, and after that, for many years, world cosmonautics seemed to have forgotten about the natural satellite of our planet.

China was the first to open a new stage of research from the surface of the Moon in the 21st century. Today he has the richest experience in landing heavy automatic stations on the Moon, operating lunar rovers and delivering lunar soil to Earth. These are still unmanned vehicles, and they cannot compare with the complexity of the past American manned Apollo program, which was half a century ago. But on the account of China – absolute superiority in such operations as landing on the far side of the moon and automatic docking in lunar orbit.

For the United States, the first decade of the 21st century was not a priority for the Moon. America seemed more ambitious goal of reaching Mars. But the economic crisis of 2008 effectively interrupted NASA’s Constellation Mars program.

New research has shown that there are deposits of water near the poles of the moon, which makes it possible to build a habitable station here. And by the mid-2010s, America returned to its interest. First, NASA undertook the development of a lunar visited Gateway station, and then swung at a full return to the moon – in the Artemis program announced in 2017. It would be more accurate to say that the United States became interested in the Moon because of its lack of alternatives: flights to the International Space Station have become too routine and do not carry the same ambition, and Mars is too distant and complicated, so the Moon remained.

Today, for the US astronautics, Artemis is the most ambitious manned program. Unlike the Apollo of the last century, it is expected that the crews will include not only white men, but also women and men of a different skin color. As can be seen from this desire, the objectives of the program are not only scientific, but also reflect current processes in US society.

NASA has already flight-tested the SLS super-heavy rocket and the Orion interplanetary spacecraft, and is planning the first manned mission to the moon next year. But for landing on the surface, it is still necessary to develop a lander, which should become much larger and more capable of carrying than half a century ago, and produce new spacesuits.

Following the United States, China also announced a manned flight to the Moon, and by the end of this decade, China intends to send two people to the satellite. But China is far behind in technology, and the development of super-heavy missiles and ships in the PRC is at an early stage, where the US was about a decade ago.

In parallel with the national lunar programs, private projects began to develop. To a large extent, they were stimulated by the technology competition Google Lunar XPRIZE. According to the terms of the competition announced in 2007, if a private company could deliver a lunar rover to the Moon, overcome 500 m on the surface and transfer 500 Mb of information, then it would receive $ 20 million from Google. More than 30 teams from different countries, including Russia, sent an application for the competition.

The deadline for the completion of the competition was repeatedly postponed, the prize fund expanded, but no one reached the finish line. It turned out that the task of reaching the surface of the moon is several times more difficult and expensive than the organizers expected. Despite the failure of the competition, it spawned several companies and projects that were able to raise money and develop their activities.

The first team of former Google Lunar XPRIZE members to reach the moon was Israel’s SpaceIL. They were able to reformat their project into an educational and public one, and find private patrons who financed about $100 million. With the funds raised, SpaceIL ordered the production of a spacecraft at the state aerospace enterprise Israel Aerospace Industries, and the launch on a SpaceX rocket. However, their Beresheet probe crashed while trying to land on the Moon in April 2019.

The next private project was the Japanese company ispace, which managed to attract investments from state-owned companies and banks for an ambitious business plan for advertising campaigns on the moon. About $90 million was invested in the project, with which the company was able to create the first Hakuto-R lander and launch it on the Falcon 9 rocket. At the same time, the company also managed to find a commercial customer: the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center from the United Arab Emirates paid for the delivery of its lunar rover. True, Hakuto-R and the Rashid lunar rover met the same fate as Beresheet – hitting the lunar surface at too high a speed.

The UAE’s lunar program is part of a broader space program that also includes the development of near-Earth space exploration, ground stations for receiving and processing space data, and exploration of Mars. For the Emirates, interest in the Moon and Mars is an expression of the desire to diversify the economy through high-tech manufacturing and services.

The Google Lunar XPRIZE initiative in the US was picked up by NASA itself and provided access to technology, test facilities and expertise for several US private companies. They also got government contracts to perform relatively simple tasks in delivering government scientific payloads to the moon. These companies include Moon Express, Astrobotic, FireFly, Masten Space and others, so far none of them have made a single launch to the Moon, but some are already ready and will make their attempts at lunar landings in the coming years.

For the Russian Federation, Luna-25 reflects the desire to emphasize the status of a space power and show the continuity of Russian cosmonautics and previous Soviet successes. The declared scientific objectives of the mission – the search and study of water on the Moon – are also quite relevant and should emphasize the advanced position of Russian space science on a par with other world leaders.

The science program of the Indian Chandrayaan 3 is not as focused, and includes a short-term study. This device launched to the Moon on July 19, landing in the South Pole is scheduled for August 23-24. But “Chandrayan-3” is able to work only under the conditions of a lunar day, about two Earth weeks. For India, prestige in the championship for the conquest of the lunar polar region is more important than scientific results. So Indian astronautics, at least on the moon, will outstrip China, with which the country is in an unspoken space race.

As a result: it cannot yet be said that the renewed interest in lunar exploration is some kind of coordinated program of mankind. Each country and each private company independently chooses priorities and practical tasks. Rather, we are seeing a general trend in the global astronautics towards accessibility and cost reduction. Now it is becoming easier for developing countries, universities and even associations of enthusiasts to launch not only near-Earth satellites, but also lunar stations.

It is still expensive and difficult, but much more affordable than it was half a century ago.