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MOSCOW, 11 Aug.
MOSCOW, Aug 11
strong> The Russian automatic station «Luna-25» was taken under control after separation from the upper stage «Fregat», Roskosmos reported.
«The Luna-25 automatic station was taken under control after separation from the Fregat upper stage,» the report says.
The Soyuz 2.1b rocket with the first domestic lunar station in almost 50 years, Luna-25, was launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome at 02:11 Moscow time. Nine minutes later, the Fregat upper stage with the Luna-25 station separated from the third stage of the rocket and entered low Earth orbit. Another hour and ten minutes later, the station separated from the upper stage and entered the flight path to the Earth's natural satellite.
«Luna-25» should be the first station to make a soft landing in the region 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 Earth's satellite was launched in 1976 and was called Luna-24.