“Roskosmos” showed the first results of the work of scientific instruments “Luna-25”

The automatic station “Luna-25” during a flight in lunar orbit carried out several switching on of scientific equipment, informed Roscosmos in its Telegram channel.

Thus, one of the instruments designed to detect microparticles registered a micrometeorite impact, which probably belongs to the Perseid meteor shower. Also in orbit, for the first time, the ARIES-L ion energy-mass analyzer was turned on, designed to study the near-surface ion exosphere in the subpolar region of the Moon.

August 17 Luna-25″ did the first image of the lunar surface, which shows the Zeeman crater on the far side of the Earth satellite. Today, Roscosmos said that the bottom of the crater, as it turned out, is dotted with smaller ones.

“This happens if part of the substance ejected upon impact fell back and created numerous small “potholes,” the state corporation explained.

In addition to the obtained image of the crater, the Luna-25 station on August 17 measured the fluxes of gamma rays and neutrons from the lunar surface and obtained parameters of the lunar space plasma and gas and dust exosphere in the lunar orbit.

Luna-25 was launched on the night of August 11 from the Vostochny cosmodrome. At 03:30 Moscow time, Roskosmos reported that the automatic station was put on a flight path to the Moon and separated from the Fregat upper stage. The first flight path correction was made on 12 August and the second on 14 August. On August 16, Luna-25 entered the orbit of an artificial satellite of the Moon. It is expected that the landing north of the Boguslavsky crater will take place on August 21.

“Luna-25” will be the first lunar mission in the history of modern Russia, in which the station will make a soft landing in the region of the South Pole of the Moon. There she will collect lunar soil and deliver it to Earth. The project also plans to launch an automatic probe, the orbital part of which will make it possible to conduct remote research and select suitable sites for subsequent descent vehicles. The previous apparatus, Luna-24, was launched in 1976. The first images of the side of the Moon invisible from the Earth were obtained in 1959, they were made by the Luna-3 station.