VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME (Amur region), 11 Aug. The upper stage «Fregat» with the first in almost 50 years of the domestic lunar station «Luna-25» separated from the third stage of the Soyuz 2.1b rocket, launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome, the correspondent reports.
«There is a separation of the head unit. The head unit … has been put into a reference orbit,» said a commentator at the observation post.
The rocket was launched at 02.11 Moscow time. Now the upper stage will have to turn on its main engine twice. It is expected that in 1 hour 10 minutes it will put the station on a flight path to the Moon.
«Luna-25» should be the first station to make a soft landing in the area of the South Pole of the Moon with a difficult terrain. All her predecessors landed in the equatorial zone. The main purpose of the station is to conduct contact studies of the lunar soil for the presence of ice.
«Luna-25» will also be the first lunar station in the history of modern Russia. The last Soviet spacecraft sent to the Earth's satellite was launched in 1976 and was called «Luna-24».
The launch is broadcast by Roskosmos and RT in Russian.
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