LUNA 25

The Russian lunar lander mission Luna-Glob or Luna 25 was 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 was to land near the Lunar south pole at the Boguslavsky crater. It carrieda 30 kg science payload containing a soil-sampling robotic arm and additional surface-drilling hardware.

Luna 25 featured a 30 kg payload composed by 9 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 was planned on a Soyuz-2-1b Fregat rocket, from 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 August 2023.

Luna 25 was successfully launched on 10 August 2023. It entered a lunar orbit on 16 August 2023. On 19 August, Luna 25 was to lower its orbit in preparation for a landing on 21 August 2023 near the lunar south pole at the crater Boguslawsky, but during this maneuver contact was lost. Reportedly the burn was 50% larger than planned, causing the lander to crash on the lunar surface.