Luna 25 (Luna-Glob Lander)

Luna-Glob [Lavochkin]

The Russian lunar lander mission Luna-Glob or Luna 25 will be the next Russian lunar mission after a decades-long hiatus.

After a very convoluted definition process, going from orbiter missions with impactors and small landers, to combined orbiter and lander missions, the mission was finally developed as a lunar polar lander.

The lander will land near the Lunar south pole at the Boguslavsky crater. It will carry a 30 kg science payload containing a soil-sampling robotic arm and possibly additional surface-drilling hardware.

Luna 25 will feature a 30 kg payload composed by 9 notional science instruments:

• ADRON-LR, active neutron and gamma-ray analysis of regolith
• ARIES-L, measurement of plasma in the exosphere
• LASMA-LR, laser mass-spectrometer
• LIS-TV-RPM, infrared spectrometry of minerals and imaging
• PmL, measurement of dust and micro-meteorites
• THERMO-L, measurement of the thermal properties of regolith
• STS-L, panoramic and local imaging
• Laser retroreflector, Moon libration and ranging experiments
• BUNI, power and science data support

ESA's Pilot-D navigation camera was to be flown on Luna-25, but was removed due to sanctions resulting from the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Launch is planned on a Soyuz-2-1b Fregat rocket, either from Baikonur or Vostoichny. Although a launch in 2018 or 2019 was baselined, it was delayed to at least 2022. Due to software issues, the launch was postponed to 2023.