On April 12, 2022, National Cosmonauts Day and the birthday celebration of the first human in orbit, Vladimir Putin traveled to the new Vostochnyi space site. In the midst of the war against Ukraine, the Russian president has declared want to relaunch a lunar program for his country.
With Luna 25, 26 and 27 Russia wants to relaunch a lunar program
In recent years, Russia has lost its grandeur in the space race. Several projects are struggling to materialize and with the current situation, some partners are deciding to leave. While international space cooperation is in jeopardy, ESA, the European space agency said a few days ago no longer want to work with Russia on space projects. The visit of Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko to this new site was intended to highlight the workers of the Russian space sector, but also to see the progress of the launch site dedicated to the large Angara launcher.
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The Russian president took advantage of this visit to make a speech on Russia’s space ambitions. He touched on a number of topics but remained quite vague on most of them. He spoke in particular about research on nuclear-powered space vehicles, future manned vessels and increased cooperation with Belarus. The media have especially retained his desire to “relaunch a lunar program”. Like the United States, Russia would therefore also like to return to the Moon. The Russian president was probably referring to Luna 25, 26 and 27, three lunar space missions in preparation for several years.
The Russian space agency finds itself isolated
As part of these missions, Russia planned to demonstrate “Russia’s modern capabilities, with landings at the lunar South Pole, ambitious experiments and programs to gain skills in the medium and long term”. Each year, this lunar program is postponed and we feel that Russia is struggling to achieve its objectives. This is all the more true now that ESA has officially abandoned Roscomos. The day after the speech, the European agency decided to definitively stop its work with Russia on Luna 25, 26 and 27, with the transfer of all experiences and developments to other vehicles.
The Russian space agency nevertheless relied heavily on European technologies to carry out its missions on the Moon. Indeed, the Europeans had to provide the box “Pilot” capable of piloting the lunar landing autonomously by processing images of the surface in real time. The Europeans are taking a stand in the current conflict and therefore prefer to favor international lunar landers, in particular those paid for by the Americans. Russia is increasingly isolated. Same the Chinese space agency has “paused” his collaboration his Russian counterpart.