This could be carried out in 2028-2029
The next Russian mission to land on the Moon may consist of two vehicles — Luna-27a and Luna-27b, which our scientists want to place our natural satellite at different poles. The scientific director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Lev Zeleny told MK about this, as well as other promising “lunar” plans on the eve of Cosmonautics Day.
Green Lion
Unfortunately, last year the Russian lunar program got off to a bad start: we lost the Luna 25 lander, which crashed on the surface of the satellite as a result of a programming error. To date, scientists have already worked out all the mistakes and are now preparing to continue the lunar exploration program.
So, the next step of the researchers will be the Luna-26 mission, which is planned for 2027. This will be an orbiter that will carry out complete remote sensing of the lunar surface and also explore the cislunar space.
Next, in 2028, Luna-27 will launch, which, according to Lev Matveevich, may consist of two identical devices that will cover the North and South lunar poles.
– In Soviet times, all devices were made in duplicate for safety reasons, – says Lev Matveevich. – They were launched at some intervals in time. This increased reliability, and the price did not increase, since the devices were exactly the same. Taking into account the experience we gained with Luna-25, realizing that landing on an earthly satellite is quite difficult, we made a proposal to make two absolutely identical devices and send this tandem to different lunar poles.
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– The excitement around the South Pole began after employees of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences back in 2010 provided evidence that there may be more water ice at the South Pole of the Moon. The data was obtained by the Russian LEND instrument on the American LRO (Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter) apparatus. And now both India and the USA have landed at the South Pole, even Türkiye is going there! And Northern, he – no worse than the South. Yes, there are fewer “wet” ones there. regions, but we are only interested in one thing: where we will sit down and continue to settle. At the same time we are not going to give up the South Pole – It will be very interesting and important to compare different conditions and measurement results in the two polar regions.
– Approximately 7-8 months, depending on convenient astronomical launch windows. We will send the first one to the South Pole in 2028, we will see how it flies, how it lands, and how it functions. If something goes wrong, we will make the necessary correction in the second and send it next already in 2029.
– Most likely they will intersect, but this will not particularly affect anything, since the measurements will still be carried out by the devices independently of each other.
Having analyzed the unsuccessful landing of Luna-25, experts came to the conclusion that a longer flight path would be safer (for Luna-25 it was about 5 days). New landing algorithms will also be developed, which will make it possible to carefully land Luna-27 on the Moon. in a given area.
As for the further program, «Luna-28» will have to bring soil from the Moon. This, according to Lev Zeleny, will not be a standard return of soil, which has long been worked out by domestic scientists, but a cryogenic one, that is, the delivery of regolith to Earth will be carried out in frozen form. This, according to scientists, will allow water ice and other organic volatile substances that were “delivered” to be preserved in the soil. to the polar regions of the Moon by comets.
The further program will begin in 2030 – By the mid-30s, Russian scientists intend to build and begin operating a space observatory on the Moon. Even further in the plans, they consider our natural satellite as an intermediate port before flights to other planets of the Solar System, from which it will be much easier to launch than from Earth due to lower gravity.
At a recent press conference, the director of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Anatoly Petrukovich, announced agreements concluded with the People's Republic of China on cooperation in the exploration of the Moon. In particular, there is an agreement on coordination between the Chang'e-7 stations and (planned for launch in 2026) and Luna-26, within which the parties will exchange scientific data and instruments.
A joint lunar orbital station with the Chinese may appear after 2030. It is currently at the research stage. However, as well as a joint project to deliver a nuclear reactor to the Moon for the uninterrupted supply of energy to the lunar base at night. On lunar nights, which last for two weeks at temperatures that drop to -100 degrees Celsius, such a source will make it possible to expand the research program more widely and make it long-term.
According to Lev Zeleny, there are also the first concrete steps as part of joint activities with the Chinese:
— In 2023, we exchanged soil samples with them. Representatives of the People's Republic of China provided us with lunar soil delivered by the Chang'e-5 spacecraft. from the youngest part of the Moon, and we provided them with our first samples delivered by Luna-16. from the most ancient region of the satellite (from which its age was once determined — 4.5 billion years). Work is currently underway to study this material.
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