"The production of the final types of instruments will begin somewhere at the end of this year," he said.

In February, work was completed to test the electric interfaces of devices for switching on/off, selecting and issuing commands and obtaining data, he said.

The Luna-26 lunar orbital probe is expected to scan almost the entire surface of the Earth’s natural satellite from the orbit. The Luna-26 orbiter will also carry equipment to create a 3D map. The space vehicle is expected to be launched in 2024. 

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos also plans to launch the Luna-25 probe in 2021 and the Luna-27 space vehicle in 2025. Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin earlier said that Russia’s integrated space program whose beginning was scheduled for 2020 would include heavy rovers for drilling the Moon’s surface, collecting soil samples and delivering them to Earth.

MOSCOW, Work on the Luna-26 and Luna-27 missions will be stepped up, said Yury Borisov, director general of Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Corporation.

"I hope that the future Luna-26, Luna-27 and Luna-28 missions will prove to be successful," he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel. "I believe that by stepping up work on the Luna-26 and Luna-27 missions, we will receive the results that we unfortunately weren’t able to get from the Luna-25 mission," the Roscosmos chief added.

According to him, it should be recognized that despite what happened, experts managed to gain invaluable experience in flying the spacecraft to the moon, delivering it to circumlunar orbit and carrying out a number of scientific experiments.

Roscosmos reported earlier that according to preliminary calculations, the Luna-25 automatic station had crashed into the moon’s surface and ceased to exist. Earlier, the spacecraft had received an impulse to activate its pre-landing elliptical orbit. About 2:57 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday, communication with the lunar lander was lost.

The Soyuz-2.1b vehicle carrying the Luna-25 autonomous probe was launched from the Vostochny spaceport on August 11. The spacecraft adjusted its flight path twice on August 12 and 14. The unmanned probe entered near-lunar orbit on Wednesday, August 16, and was scheduled to land on the surface of the moon on August 21.

Quelle: TASS

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Update: 28.10.2023

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Russia’s Luna-26 mission may be launched one year earlier — Roscosmos chief