MOSCOW, August 17 The Luna-25 interplanetary station has taken the first pictures of the far side of the Moon with the television cameras of the STS-L complex, Roscosmos reported.
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"The image, taken today at 08:23 Moscow time, captures the south polar crater Zeeman on the far side of the moon. The coordinates of the center of the crater correspond to 75 degrees south latitude and 135 degrees west longitude,” the state corporation said.
The Zeeman crater is a unique object on the lunar surface, which is of great interest to researchers, since the height of the surrounding swell reaches eight kilometers above the surface of a relatively flat bottom.
«The images obtained significantly complement the currently available information about this crater,» Roscosmos noted.
The STS-L television complex was created at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Luna-25 also carried out observations using the ADRON-LR and PmL instruments developed at the IKI RAS, ARIES-L and Astron Electronics.
“Gamma-ray and neutron fluxes from the lunar surface were measured, and the parameters of the circumlunar space plasma and the gas and dust exosphere in the circumlunar orbit were also obtained,» the corporation added.
The Soyuz 2.1b rocket with the first domestic lunar station in almost 50 years was launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome at 02:11 Moscow time on August 11. The main goal of the mission is to examine the lunar soil for the presence of ice.
The Luna-25 automatic station was created at the Lavochkin Research and Production Association. It should be the first spacecraft to land gently in the area of the south pole of the moon, where the complex terrain prevails. This is expected to happen on August 21.