BEIJING, Aug 11 Russia with the launch of the Luna-25 automatic station demonstrated that it is still a great space power despite all the difficulties it is currently experiencing, Chinese international affairs expert Qian Liyan said Friday.
The expert noted that the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States in research and flights to the moon was one of the important components of the confrontation between the two powers during the Cold War.
According to him, «Today's Russia is no longer the (country) that the then Soviet Union was, it does face many difficulties, but judging by the way Russia is re-establishing its path in space, it is not so much about restoring the ambitions of the great power, but more so that the eyes of the Russian leadership are not blocked by current difficulties, such as the Ukrainian conflict, but are still directed into the distance.
“Launching a research vehicle to the Moon is not only an expensive task, it is also associated with past technical preparation. It is obvious that today Russia is unlikely to have assembled such a probe from what was created according to the old Soviet technologies of that time, new ones were certainly used technology, which means that Russia is still demonstrating its status as a great space power,» he said.
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 02.11 Moscow time. Subsequently, the station separated from the upper stage and entered the flight path to the natural satellite of the Earth, after 5 days it will enter a circumlunar circular orbit with a height of 100 km.
«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. It is due August 21st. 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.