Luna 25 spacecraft launch postponed till August due to additional checks - Roscosmos

MOSCOW. May 30 (Interfax) - The launch of modern Russia's first ever lunar mission has been postponed from July until August 2023 due to the need for additional checks of ground control infrastructure, Roscosmos said on Tuesday.

"To achieve the needed reliability for completing the mission, additional measures must be carried out to ensure the stable operation of ground control systems during the correction stages and the descent to the surface of the Moon," Roscosmos said.

"Based on this, [we] think it is advisable that the Luna 25 spacecraft be launched in August 2023," it said.

The descent, the first one in the history of Russian space exploration, will be conducted in the difficult conditions around the lunar south pole, Roscosmos said.

The Luna 25 spacecraft is currently undergoing its final cycle of ground tests, as part of which it is completing a statistical simulation of a lunar soft landing using a test stand, the corporation said.

"Our country's experience, and the experience of several other countries which have landed on the surface of the Moon, shows that this stage, given the complexity of spacecraft ballistics and navigation support tasks during a flight, is crucial to the success of the entire mission," Roscosmos said.

Previously, the corporation said that Luna 25 would be launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in July 2023.

Roscosmos said on September 7 that the launch of the Luna 25 exploratory spacecraft was delayed until 2023 due to problems with a Doppler speed and range meter.

Luna 25 is part of Russia's lunar program. NPO Lavochkin is working on the first lunar mission, which aims to explore and use the Moon and the space around it by means of automatic interplanetary rovers. A lander will be launched first, followed by the launch of an orbiter a year later.