News and Events (in Russian for the time being)

Luna-25 mission, currently in a circular orbit around the Moon, sent back first images of the far side of the Moon made by STS-L TV-cameras.

Today Luna-25 station, built at Lavochkin Association (part of State Space Corporation Roscosmos), entered the circular polar orbit around the Moon and became its artificial satellite.

The IKI RAS has completed an express analysis of telemetry and measurement data of scientific instruments on board the Luna-25 automatic station, performed on August 13, 2023 in two sessions of the first activations at a distance of about 310 thousand km from the Earth. All instruments showed full operability and readiness for lunar exploration. Their analog and digital components and blocks worked perfectly.

Luna-25 automatic mission to the Moon was launched from Vostochny cosmodrome by Soyuz-2.1b launcher. It was successfully inserted into cruise trajectory and separated from the Fregat booster.

Luna-25 lander is equipped with the self-consistent set of scientific instruments, which will study the regolith and the exosphere of the Moon.

For nine days, since July 29 to August 6, IKI welcomed the participants of Summer Space School — an annual event for everyone interested in space exploration.

On August 7, 2023 Luna-25 science teams have successfully completed the 'general rehearsal' of the first stages of instruments' work on the Moon.

Spektr-RG, James Webb Space Telescope, Gaia, and since the end of July, 2023, Euclid circle around L2 point in animations by Natan Eismon and Maxim Pupkov from the Department of Space Dynamics and Mathematical Information Processing.

Before Luna-25 mission starts off to the Moon, as planned, in August 2023, we asked academician Lev Zelenyi, academic advisor of IKI and Principal Investigator of the mission, to share some details from Luna-25's long history and its main objectives.

July 24, 2023, a team of IKI scientists and engineers left for Vostochnyi cosmodrome for closing works on Luna-25 scientific payload before the spacecraft starts for the Moon.