LUNA 25

LUNA 25

CONTEXT:

• Russia will launch its first lunar landing spacecraft in 47 years on Friday in a race with India to the south pole of the moon.

ABOUT LUNA-25

• Luna 25, also designated the Luna-Glob-Lander, is a Russian lunar lander mission currently scheduled for launch in August 2023.
• Luna 25 (Luna-Glob lander) is a planned lunar lander mission by Roscosmos.
• It will land near the lunar south pole at the Boguslavsky crater.
• The reserve landing site is at 68.773 S and 21.21 E, southwest of Manzini crater.
• Both coordinate points are centers of 15 x 30 km landing ellipses.
• The lander is expected to operate on the lunar surface, studying surface regolith and exospheric dust and particles, for one year.

• It is targeted to the south polar region of the Moon.
• There are two primary scientific objectives of the mission:
  • to study composition of the polar regolith,
  • to study the plasma and dust components of the lunar polar exosphere.

ABOUT LANDER:

• The lander has a four-legged base containing the landing rockets and propellant tanks, an upper compartment holds the solar panels, communication equipment, on-board computers, and most of the science apparatus.
• Dry mass is about 800 kg, and it is expected to have roughly 950 kg of propellant at launch.
• The lander has a 1.6 meter-long Lunar Robotic Arm (LRA, or Lunar Manipulator Complex) to remove and collect the surface regolith to depths of 20 to 30 cm.
• The LRA is equipped with a scoop (175 cubic cm volume) and a sample acquisition tool, a 4.7 cm long tube with an internal diameter of 1.25 cm.
• The arm has four degrees of freedom / rotations: azimuthal, shoulder, elbow, and wrist/scoop.
• Total mass of the LRA is 5.5 kg, it uses 30 W nominal, and 50 W maximum power.

OTHER PAYLOADS:

• There are eight science instruments.
• ADRON-LR is a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer to study the surface regolith.
• ARIES-L detects charged particles and neutrals in the polar exosphere. LIS-TV-RPM, an infra-red spectrometer, measures surface water and OH and is mounted on the LRA.
• The LASMA-LR mass spectrometer will measure composition of regolith samples (1 – 2 cubic cm) from the LRA using laser ablation.
• The PML detector will study dust in the polar exosphere. STS-L is a panoramic and local imaging system.
• THERMO-L will study the regolith thermal properties, and the lander will also carry a laser retroreflector panel.
• Data transmission rates back to Earth are planned to be 4 Mbits/sec.

SYLLABUS: PRELIMS, CURRENT AFFAIRS