MOSCOW, Aug 18 The Russian interplanetary station Luna-25 has adjusted its circumlunar orbit to prepare for a descent and further landing on the Earth’s satellite, the Roscosmos Telegram channel reported «.
«Today at 09.20 Moscow time, the propulsion system of the automatic station performed an orbit correction for 40 seconds. Its purpose is to provide the best conditions for the subsequent construction of a pre-landing orbit,» the report says.
According to the state corporation, the correction went through normally, all on-board systems of Luna-25 work normally, communication with the station is stable.
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, five days later the device entered the lunar orbit — about 100 kilometers from the surface of a celestial body.
In about a day, the station will descend into an elliptical landing orbit with a minimum altitude of 18 kilometers.
The station should be the first spacecraft to make a soft landing in the area of the South Pole of the Moon with difficult terrain. It is due August 21st.
The area north of the Boguslavsky crater on the visible side of the Moon has been chosen as a priority landing site. If for some reason it is not possible to land there, there are two reserve «airfields» — southwest of the Manzini crater and south of the Pentland-A crater.
The main goal of Luna-25 is to conduct contact studies of the lunar soil for the presence of ice.