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Russia to Launch Lunar Mission Russia, which pioneered and then abandoned robotic exploration of the Moon after losing the Space Race and collapse of the Soviet Union, is starting the development of its first lunar mission in 30 years, the Aviation Week and Space Technology reported Monday. The ambitious flight, entering initial design, will include a lunar orbiter that, under the current plan, will also simultaneously deploy 13 probes across diverse regions of the lunar surface. This will include two penetrators that will be fired toward the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 landing sites to acquire subsurface data to build on the manned exploration and instrumentation left at those locations 37 years ago by U.S. astronauts. The Russian flight is also to shower 10 other higher-speed penetrators on the Moon that will form a seismic network to help solve questions about the Moon’s origin. The new “Luna-Glob” mission is now a formal part of the Russian space plan with launch set for 2012, says Nikolay F. Moiseev, deputy director of the Russian space agency. With the new lunar flight, Russia finally joins the U.S., China, India, Japan and Europe in renewed exploration of the Moon. But the program is also subject to future budget and technical risks. The Russian lunar mission is to follow the launch in 2009 of a Russian sample return flight to the Martian moon Phobos as part of a renewal of Russian robotic planetary exploration, Moiseev told Aviation Week & Space Technology. Both missions have science goals related to the formation of bodies in the Solar System. The Phobos flight would help confirm theories about it being a captured asteroid, while the Luna mission would sort out competing theories of the Moon’s origin. The ambitious lunar flight would also add data to the theory that water ice, possibly useful to future lunar astronauts, may exist in permanently shadowed area of south polar craters. The lunar mission is now “most definitely part of our plan” Moiseev said. It is to be launched on a Soyuz booster, or a Molniya version of the Soyuz with an extra upper stage. The U.S., China, India and Japan are all planning to launch new orbiters to the Moon starting in 2008, and Japan is also developing its own lunar penetrator mission that would be much less ambitious than Russia’s. The U.S. impacter would be part of the 2008 U.S. orbiter, but would not return data directly from the surface, as is planned for all 13 of the Russian probes. At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union achieved many firsts in robotic lunar exploration. Between 1958-76, the USSR attempted the launch of 60 robotic lunar missions. Roughly 30 involved launch or trajectory problems, less of a challenge today, while about 10 failed on or near the Moon. About 20, however, were a total or partial success. Major Soviet achievements included the first lunar flyby in 1959; the first lunar far-side photos in 1960; the first semi-soft lander to return images from the surface in 1966; a series of successful lunar orbiters starting in 1966; three robotic sample returns in 1970, ’72 an ’76; and two Lunokhod rovers in 1970 and ’73. The two Lunokhods, roved 6 and 23 mi. across the lunar surface, respectively. ---------------------------------------------------
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