Luna 25


Luna 25 is a planned lunar lander mission by the Russian Federal Space Agency. It will land near the lunar south pole at the Boguslavsky crater. It was renamed from Luna-Glob lander to Luna 25 to emphasize the continuity of the Soviet Luna programme from the 1970s, though it is still part of what was at one point conceptualized as the Luna-Glob lunar exploration program. The launch is scheduled for October 2021.

History

Nascent plans for what is now Luna 25 began in the late 1990s, with the evaluation of two spacecraft designs having taken place by 1998. Attempts to revive and complete the project continued throughout the 2000s and were punctuated by an aborted attempt at international cooperation via a merger with JAXA's now-cancelled Lunar-A orbiter, and pressure from another attempted cooperative lunar mission with ISRO.
Delays in the 2010s came first from the significant rework and delay brought on by the failure of Phobos-Grunt in 2011. This is the point at which the modern Luna 25 design was developed. Later, work on the lander was slowed by resource pressures being placed upon spacecraft developer NPO Lavochkin, such as the weather satellite Elektro-L No.2 and the Spektr-RG observatory as well the landing platform Russia is contributing to ExoMars 2020.
By 2017, the propulsion system for the spacecraft was in assembly.

Mission

Initial mission plans called for a lander and orbiter, with the latter also deploying impact penetrators. In its current form, Luna 25 is a lander only, with a primary mission of proving out the landing technology. The mission will carry of scientific instruments, including a robotic arm for soil samples and possible drilling hardware.
The launch is currently planned for October 2021 on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket with Fregat-M upper stage, from Baikonur or Vostochny.

Science payload

The lander will feature a payload composed by 9 notional science instruments:
LINA-XSAN, a Swedish payload, was to fly with Luna 25, but delays to the launch date caused Sweden to cancel this plan. Instead, LINA-XSAN flew on Chang'e 4 in 2019.