The Space Research Institute published the first images from Luna-25

The onboard television cameras of the Luna-25 station took the first pictures from space, published Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“The STS-L onboard television cameras received the first images from space, which will go down in the history of Russian cosmonautics. These images show the structural elements of the Luna-25 apparatus against the background of the Earth, from which we have already departed forever, and against the background of the Moon, to which we will soon arrive, ”the institute said in a statement. Also included in the picture was the mission emblem and the bucket of the onboard manipulator.

The pictures were taken on August 13 in two sessions of the first inclusions at a distance of about 310,000 km from the Earth. The institute added that an express analysis of telemetry and measurement data of scientific instruments on board the station has already been completed, all instruments are ready for lunar exploration, their analog and digital units and blocks have worked perfectly

The device ADRON-LR also measured the radiation background on the device. Galactic cosmic rays make a significant contribution to this background, since they fill the entire interplanetary space. It was important to measure it, since future expeditions will have to work on the Moon, the institute specified. They emphasized that an express analysis of the first measurement data showed that Luna-25 is a reliable complex.

As of August 14, communication with the station is stable, the systems are working normally, the report says.

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. At 04:27, the state corporation confirmed that the automatic station had been taken over. The first correction of the flight path was carried out on 12 August, the second on 14 August.

The exit of “Luna-25” into a circumlunar orbit with a height of 100 km should occur on August 16, and landing in the area north of the Boguslavsky crater – 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.