MOSCOW, August 12 planned correction of the flight trajectory to the natural satellite of the Earth, according to the Roscosmos website.
«Today, the automatic station Luna-25, created at the Lavochkin Research and Production Association (part of the state corporation Roscosmos), carried out the first correction of the flight trajectory to the Earth's natural satellite,» the statement says.
It is specified that the propulsion system of the station turned on at 16:00 Moscow time and worked for 46 seconds.
The Soyuz 2.1b rocket with the first in almost 50 years domestic lunar station Luna-25 was launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome on August 11 at 2:11 Moscow time. Subsequently, the station separated from the upper stage and entered the flight path to the Earth's satellite. In five days, it will enter a circumlunar circular orbit about a hundred kilometers high.
«Luna-25» should be the first station to make a soft landing in the region of the south pole of the moon with difficult terrain — it is expected on August 21. All the station's predecessors landed in the equatorial zone. The main goal of Luna-25 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».