MOSCOW, Aug 18The station «Luna-25» in about a day will «descend» to 18 kilometers in the resettlement, two days later at this point it will move to a vertical fall to the landing site, the speed of the device by the time it reaches the Moon should become almost zero, spoke about how the landing of the apparatus should take place, leading researcher at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences Natan Eismont.
“Now the device is in a low circular orbit — 100 kilometers above the surface of the Moon. In about a day, the device will be transferred to an elliptical orbit with a relocation (the point of the orbit closest to the Moon — ed.) 18 kilometers … Approximately within two days the device will be in this orbit. At the same time, trajectory measurements will be performed in order to clarify the orbit parameter and make corrections, if necessary,» Eismont said.
The expert called the soft landing task the «most responsible and difficult» part of the entire station flight, noting that the risks at this stage are «highest» compared to other phases of the mission.
“About noon on August 21, the penultimate impulse will be given out in the area of perition, (there will be — ed.) a change in the speed of the apparatus, and it will proceed, simply speaking, to a vertical fall to the landing point … Soon the engine will be turned on, which will regulate the fall in such a way that by the time it reached the moon, the speed had become almost zero,» Eismont explained.
If these conditions are met, the device will successfully land on the South Pole of the Earth's natural satellite, the expert concluded.
The Soyuz 2.1b rocket with the first in almost 50 years Russian lunar station Luna-25 was launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome at 02.11 Moscow time on August 11. On Wednesday, August 16, Luna-25 entered lunar orbit. «Luna-25» should be the first device that will make a soft landing in the area of the South Pole of the Moon with a difficult terrain. It is due August 21st. The main goal is to conduct contact studies of the lunar soil for the presence of ice.