In NPO them. S. A. Lavochkin passed a council of chief designers on Russian lunar projects, which approved a strategy for the implementation of the domestic program for the study and development of a natural satellite of the Earth.
The renewed interest of scientists in the Moon is due, inter alia, to the fact that the Russian LEND instrument installed on board the American LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) probe has discovered signs of the existence of water in the circumpolar regions of our natural satellite. The adopted strategy consists of four main stages and covers the period until 2025.
The first phase is scheduled for 2019. This stage provides for the creation of a small demonstration landing station "Luna 25" ("Luna-Glob") with a reduced composition of scientific equipment, which should ensure the development of basic technologies for soft landing on the satellite surface. Then the study of the south pole of the moon will begin.
In 2020, the orbital spacecraft Luna-26 (Luna-Resurs-1 OA) will go to the Moon. This satellite will operate in a circumlunar circular polar orbit with an altitude of 200 km for about a year. The tasks of the spacecraft at this stage will be the collection and transmission of information from the landing station to the Earth, as well as the conduct of scientific research with a complex of equipment for remote exploration of the Moon. During the year, the device will be transferred twice for several days to an orbit with a low pericenter (about 50 km) to conduct detailed studies of the satellite's surface. Further, the spacecraft will be transferred to an orbit with an altitude of 500-700 km, in which the LORD astrophysical experiment will be implemented, aimed at studying cosmic rays and ultrahigh-energy neutrinos.
Further, in 2021, it is planned to send the Luna-27 (Luna-Resurs-1) lander with a cryogenic deep drilling rig to the south pole of the Moon. This robot will be equipped with a high-precision and safe landing system, which will significantly increase the landing accuracy (up to 3 kilometers), and thereby improve the ability to choose the preferred location for scientific research.
Finally, in 2024, the launch of the automatic space station Luna-29 (Luna-Grunt) with a soil intake device, technical means for thermostating rock samples and a system for their delivery to Earth for further research is planned.
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