Moonshot rivalry: Russia's Luna-25 vs Chandrayaan-3 in the ultimate South Pole sprint

Russia is gearing up to launch its Lunar landing mission—Luna 25— on the eleventh of August after a hiatus of almost 5 decades in an effort to win the race to be the first country to land a rover on the Moon's southern pole. Scientists believe that the moon's southern pole may contain water that may support a future human presence on the Lunar surface.

With the July 14 launch of Chandrayaan-3, India holds the advantage but reports say that Russia’s latest lunar mission can match or narrowly beat India’s Chandrayaan 3 in moon landing. 

According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a soft landing is scheduled around August 23. 

According to the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the Luna-25 spacecraft will travel to the moon in five days, spend 5-7 days in lunar orbit, and then land at one of three potential locations near the pole. Based on this schedule, it is possible that Luna-25 will arrive at the moon's surface on par with or just slightly earlier than Chandrayaan-3.

The south pole is a sought-after location despite its challenging topography because scientists think it may contain substantial amounts of ice that might be utilised to extract fuel and oxygen as well as drinking water.

'Enough space for everyone'

The two missions won't interfere with one another, according to Roscosmos, because their intended landing sites differ.

"There is no danger that they interfere with each other or collide. There is enough space for everyone on the moon," the Russian space agency said. 

While Luna-25 will spend a year working on the moon, Chandrayaan-3 will conduct research for two weeks. A moon landing attempt by a commercial space company, made by Japan's ispace (9348.T), was unsuccessful in April, 2023. 

The 1.8-ton Luna-25 will utilise a scoop to collect rock samples from a depth of up to 15 cm (6 inches) in order to test for the existence of frozen water that might support human life. Luna-25 is also carrying 31 kg (68 pounds) of scientific equipment.

A space researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lev Zeleny, said, "The moon is the seventh continent of the Earth so we are simply 'condemned', as it were, to tame it,"

The launch which was supposed to happen in October 2021, has been postponed for over two years. The European Space Agency had intended to use Luna-25 to test its Pilot-D guidance camera, but severed all links to the project after the Russia-Ukraine war started in February last year. 

Village to be evacuated in Russia's far-east

Residents of a village in Russia's far east will be evacuated at 7.30 a.m. on Friday due to a "one in a million chance" that one of the rocket stages that launches Luna-25 may crash land there, according to a local official.

According to the official, the 26 residents of Shakhtinsky would travel for three and a half hours to a location where they could witness the launch and have a free meal. He said that local hunters and fishermen had also been forewarned.

(With inputs from agencies)