‘Hope Russia goes ahead with Luna-26, 27 mission as planned’: Indian Institute of Astrophysics

Russia made a brave attempt to go to a yet unexplored region of the moon, after nearly 50 decades. As fate would have had it, the mission, Luna-25, crashed on the moon, after it spiralled out of control. The director of Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Dr Annapurni Subramaniam made a statement, saying “A very big credential regarding space exploration 50 years ago and they attempted this after about 50 years.” She added, “We hope that they still continue to have the knowledge, capacity and experience and that they will be able to solve it and go ahead with their Luna-26 and Luna-27 missions as planned.”

#WATCH | Bengaluru: On Russia Luna-25 crash, Director, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Annapurni Subramaniam says, "A very big credential regarding space exploration 50 years ago and they attempted this after about 50 years. We hope that they still continue to have the… pic.twitter.com/79L1VYRBkC

— ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2023

Russia, then the USSR, was a force to be reckoned with about 50 years ago when we speak about space exploration. From sending the first human to space to launching the first man made orbiting satellite into space, Russia was making massive strides in space exploration. Even its last mission to the moon, the Luna 24 was a massive success, which took place at the height of the USSR’s cold war with the US. The Luna 24 brought back a pretty sizeable chunk of Moon rocks back to the Earth. The Luna 24 was particularly significant, as it was one of the first missions to the Moon that spoke of the possibility of water being present on the lunar surface. In February 1978, a team of Soviet scientists at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytic Chemistry published a paper claiming that they had definitively found traces of water in the samples from Luna 24. The Luna 25’s mission was to expand our understanding of the Moon’s south pole region. It was equipped with a suite of advanced scientific instruments, including specially designed cameras, spectrometers, and drilling equipment. It was supposed to study the Moon’s surface composition, geology, and potential ice deposits.