Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, which launched the Luna-25 on Friday, has said that its landing on the moon would not impede India’s Chandrayaan-3, which was launched on July 14, 2023, as the two missions had different landing areas and there was enough space on the Moon for everyone.
Luna-25 was launched from Russia’s Vostochny spaceport in the country’s Far East region on August 11, 2023. Its lunar lander is expected to reach the moon on August 23, the same day on which Chandrayaan-3 is expected to land on the lunar surface too.
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“Luna-25 and Chandrayaan-3 have different landing areas planned. There is no danger that they will hamper each other’s functions or collide. There is enough space on the Moon for everyone. Luna-25 is static, it will not move on the surface of the Moon,” Ilya Morozov, Center of internal and external communications, State Corporation Roscosmos, told The Hindu.
Mr. Morozov said that Luna-25’s landing on the Moon would take place in several stages.
“Launching Luna-25 onto the flight trajectory to the Moon will take 1 hour and 20 minutes. The duration of the flight from Earth to the Moon is five days. Stay in lunar orbit — from five to seven days, depending on the landing area. Three areas were selected for the lunar landing: the main one — to the north of the Boguslavsky crater and two reserve ones — to the south of the Manzinus crater and to the south of the Pentland-A crater,” Mr. Morozov said.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to have the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover touch down near the lunar south pole region at 5.47 p.m. on August 23.
According to the ISRO, there were six active lunar orbiters as of July 2023.
“Currently, the only operating rover is China’s Yutu-2 rover released by Chang’e 4, which operates on the far side. From the available media sources, it is expected that Luna-25 of Russia with a lander and rover will be in a lunar orbit of 100 km by August 16, 2023, and will be landing on the south pole of the moon by August 21-23, 2023,” ISRO said on August 9.
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Roscosmos said that it has had no interaction with the ISRO on the Luna-25 project.
However, it said that it is open to India’s participation in the International Scientific Lunar Station (ILRS) and also exploring the possibility of placing a Russian scientific payload on future Indian lunar exploration missions.
“There is no interaction with ISRO on the Luna-25 project. At the same time, the Russian side is open to cooperation on the participation of the Indian side in implementing the project of the International Scientific Lunar Station. Moreover, we are ready to consider the possibility of placing a Russian scientific payload on future Indian lunar exploration missions,” Mr Morozov said.
The ILRS is a planned lunar base currently persuaded by Roscosmos and the Chinese space agency.
