In recent years, Roscosmos has focused on manned flights to Earth orbit, working as a "space cab", but the Luna-25 project hopes to change this practice.
The lunar probe, slated to launch in 2024, will symbolize Russia's return to the moon - the country's last space pioneer device landed on the lunar surface in 1976.
In addition, Luna 25 is only part of one big plan: manned flight and the creation of a lunar base.
“The proposed base will consist of a solar power plant, a telecommunications station, a technological and scientific station, a long-range research lunar rover, a spacecraft take-off and landing site and a satellite in orbit,” writes SpaceFlightInsider journalist Tomasz Nowakowski. "If all plans are implemented, the base will be built in the 2030s."
But without experience and technologies for landing probes on the lunar surface (not counting old Soviet launches), Russia will not be easy. Roscosmos engineers say that one of the most difficult tasks will be to learn how to "land on the moon" again.
And without the development of technologies for landing on the surface of our natural satellite on unmanned probes, there can be no question of a manned mission, although Russia has established itself as a reliable space carrier.
In 2024, Russia also plans to revive the Venera program, a fleet of space probes that have successfully explored our neighbor. Nevertheless, two post-Soviet missions to Mars could not even reach Earth's orbit, let alone reach the Red Planet, so Russia will have to learn from scratch to fly above low Earth orbit.
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But if they succeeded before, they can do it now.
Based on materials from Popular Mechanics