Russia launched this Friday August 11 Luna-25, its first probe to the Moon in nearly 50 years. Isabelle Sourbès-Verger, research director at the CNRS, deciphers the challenges of this mission.
The Russian mission to the Moon is “more experimental, technological” than that of the United States, explained Friday August 11 on franceinfo Isabelle Sourbès-Verger, geographer, specialist in questions of geopolitics, space and space policies, director of research at the CNRS. Russia on Friday launched its first probe to the Moon in nearly 50 years, a mission intended to give new impetus to its space sector, which has been struggling for years.
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What is the objective of this mission for Russia?
Isabelle Sourbes-Verger: It is a matter of depositing a lander at the south pole of the Moon and starting to carry out a certain number of experiments. At the South Pole, this has never been done. There is also an Indian probe which should arrive on August 23 or 24, so around the same time as the Russian probe. We are witnessing a renewed interest in the Moon with different issues. On the one hand, there is the United States with the great Artemis mission and its Western partners, whose idea is to settle on the Moon with a station, then to bring down astronauts on board the Moon to short-term, long-term stays. The financial cost is around 10 billion dollars annually. On the other side, you have missions like the Russian mission which are more experimental, more technological. The Russian space budget in its entirety, with all types of satellites, applications, rockets, we are at less than 5 billion dollars.
What is at stake for Russia?
Russia is trying to return with the lunar missions, since it had not practiced since 1976. They were the pioneers in the conquest of space, they were the first in 1959 to photograph the hidden face of the Moon, we do not had never seen. It was a Luna probe that took these first photos. Then it was the Soviets who made the first atlas of the Moon. I think the Luna-25 probe could have been launched in 2016. Originally, it was supposed to be more in international cooperation with Western instruments. We cannot say that this is a recent decision by Vladimir Putin, but it happens that the context gives it a particular magnitude. In addition, Russia has signed, for a few years, a partnership with China to carry out parallel missions and after Luna-25 we expect Luna-26 and Luna-27.
What chances do the Russians have of succeeding in landing their Luna-25 probe?
The failure rate is relatively high for newcomers. We saw Israeli and Japanese private probes fail a few months ago. Russia has a lot of experience, but it’s old, so we’ll see how the final phase of the moon landing goes. This is the main difficulty because the terrain is rugged and the descent of the probe must be calculated and controlled with great precision. As it is a big probe, a heavy probe, it is even more difficult.
2023-08-11 10:03:38
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