Roscosmos does not plan to repeat the Luna 25 mission

But experts want to make two Luna-27s at once.

There are no plans to repeat Luna-25 in the form in which it launched towards the earth’s satellite on August 11 of this year. A source in the space industry told MK about this.

Let us recall that the main goal of the Luna-25 project was to carry out a soft landing on the earth’s satellite, which our specialists have not done for the last 47 years that have passed since the successful launch of Luna-24. The device was also supposed to land in the vicinity of the South Pole and examine its soil for the presence of water and other substances. On board there was a full set of sophisticated instruments for analysis. However, due to an error, according to one versionallowed by specialists who did not prescribe in the flight control program the system’s response to receiving a command, Luna 25 crashed on the surface of Selene.

After this unfortunate incident, many in the industry talked about the feasibility of repeating the mission using existing redundant parts of the station and its instruments. The head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, spoke about the desire of professionals not to postpone the next flight indefinitely, a few days after the accident. He did not even rule out repeating Luna 25 for a second attempt to achieve a soft landing. However, upon closer examination, it became clear that in order to repeat the project, specialists from the NPO named after. Lavochkin lacks several important instruments that were previously provided by foreign colleagues. Now, under the conditions of sanctions, it takes time to create them again.

Thus, the next device, which today is considered as the next step towards conquering the Moon in Roscosmos, is planned to be the Luna-26 lunar orbital satellite. It is possible that they will try to prepare it for launch as early as 2026. Following it in 2027, it is planned to send Luna-27 into space, which will again try to land on the surface, with a more complex set of instruments. It is noteworthy that with Luna 27, space experts decided to resume the Soviet-era practice, when complex interplanetary stations were prepared in two copies at once. This was done as a safety net: the “understudy” was sent next in case of failure with the first one after a month or a month and a half.

Let us remind you that Roscosmos will officially announce the details of the cause of the fall of the first lunar lander in the history of modern Russia at the end of September.