A high-definition image of Mare Australe, a lunar mare located in the southeastern hemisphere of the Moon, as photographed by Japan’s Kaguya lunar orbiter in November 2007.
JAXA/NHK
With India’s Chandrayaan-2 now on its way there and Artemis-3 sizing-it up for exploration by two astronauts in 2024, the Moon’s South Pole has never been hotter property. But did you know there’s also a joint Russian-European mission to visit the same region at more-or-less the same time? Welcome to the Luna Program, a schedule of five missions to the Moon that few have heard of, but is sure to make headlines in the 2020s. The continuation of an old mission dating back to the Soviet era, it the Luna Program will re-start with Luna 25 in 2021 and culminate in Luna 27, a mission to go "moon digging" ... just as NASA's Artemis-3 arrives.
A Russian Proton-M rocket takes off from the launch pad at Russia's space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan on July 13, 2019. (Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service photo via AP)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
What is Luna 25?
Scheduled launch: July 2021
Luna 25–also called the Luna-Glob lander–is a planned lunar lander mission by the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The first mission to the Moon by Roscosmos since 1976's Luna 24 (the "last moondigger" and the last spacecraft to return with a sample of rock from the lunar surface), Luna 25 will land at the Moon’s South Pole at a crater called Boguslavsky. It’s a preparatory mission that's largely about testing lunar landing technology, though it will contain a suite of scientific instruments that will work for about a year. It will also lay a laser retroreflector to allow laser beams to be sent from Earth onto the Moon. The time it takes for the beams to be reflected back to Earth tells scientists precisely how far away the Moon is, and exactly how the Moon librates during its orbit of Earth.
Luna 27 will do some serious science at the Moon's South Pole.
Roscosmos
What is Luna 26?
Scheduled launch: 2023/2024
Luna 26 is also known as the Luna-Resurs-Orbiter, and is merely a satellite that will go into a polar orbit of the Moon to relay communications between Earth and future lunar landers. Science-wise it will also monitor the solar wind and high-energy cosmic rays, and identify a safe touchdown location for Luna 27.
What will Luna 27 be ‘prospecting?’
Water. The purpose of Luna 27 is to prospect for resources such as lunar water ice in permanently shadowed regions of the Moon. That means the craters of the South Pole, some of which never get any direct sunlight.
PROSPECT is being constructed by ESA and ispace for Luna-27.
ESA
What is Luna 27?
Scheduled launch: 2024/2025
This is the big one. Luna 27–also called the Luna-Resurs lander–is a planned lunar lander mission by Roscosmos with collaboration by the European Space Agency. It has the goal of not just visiting the Moon’s South Pole by 2024/2025, but to go prospecting.
In fact, ESA announced today that ispace Europe–a lunar exploration company headquartered in Japan with a subsidiary in Luxembourg that's planning its own lunar lander–will be part of the science team for PROSPECT (Package for Resource Observation and in-Situ Prospecting for Exploration, Commercial exploitation and Transportation). ispace Europe's Carlos Espejel, Space & Earth Mine Planning Engineer, Abigail Calzada Diaz, Mission Scientist, and Julien-Alexandre Lamamy, ispace Europe’s Managing Director, and VP of Europe R&D, will help outwith science and the coordination of the PROSPECT lunar instruments.
Scientists expect Luna-27 to find evidence of water-ice and other chemicals at the Moon's South Pole.
ESA
What is PROSPECT?
PROSPECT is a project on Luna 27 that will seek to extract water on the Moon. The lander will carry several payloads, including a sampling drill to analyze lunar regolith, the loose rock and material that covers the surface of the Moon. PROSPECT's drill will drill beneath the surface in the South Pole region of the Moon and extract samples, which scientists expect will demonstrably contain water ice. At the kinds of depths they’re aiming to drill, it will be at least -238°F/-150°C. A chemical lab called ProSPA will be on hand to super-heat the samples to see what chemicals are present. As well as taking care of PROSPECT, ESA will also develop an automated landing system for Luna 27.
What other science will Luna 27 do?
As well as the drill, there are another 15 scientific interments on board to study everything from seismic activity to the thermal properties of the regolith.
After 2025's Luna 27, Roscosmos is planning Luna 28, which could–like Luna 24 back in 1976–collect a sample from the South Pole and return it to Earth.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes
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