European Space Agency parts with Russia on Moon Missions

[essentialsaltes]

Europe Cancels Joint Moon Missions with Russia
Russia will move forward with lunar exploration without its European partners

In an April 13 statement, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced it was severing cooperative activities with Russia on the upcoming Luna-25, 26 and 27 missions. The agency wrote that “the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resulting sanctions put in place represent a fundamental change of circumstances and make it impossible for ESA to implement the planned lunar cooperation.”

Europe’s decision to cut ties with Russia on the Luna program follows on the heels of ESA suspending the ExoMars mission, a collaboration with Russia that had been scheduled for launch this September. ExoMars would have paired an ESA-built Mars rover with a Russian-supplied lander for a mission on the Red Planet. (That landing module is still in Europe. Dmitry Rogozin, general director of Russia’s space program Roscosmos, recently asserted that it “must be returned.”)

The most recent of the pioneering Soviet moon missions was Luna-24, which lobbed roughly six ounces (170 grams) of lunar near-side collectibles back to Earth in 1976.

[Luna-25 is an attempt at a soft landing on the moon. Luna-26 would be a polar orbiter. Luna-27 would be a lunar lander with a drill for exploring beneath the lunar surface and an internal lab for analysis.]

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Europe Cancels Joint Moon Missions with Russia
Russia will move forward with lunar exploration without its European partners

In an April 13 statement, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced it was severing cooperative activities with Russia on the upcoming Luna-25, 26 and 27 missions. The agency wrote that “the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resulting sanctions put in place represent a fundamental change of circumstances and make it impossible for ESA to implement the planned lunar cooperation.”

Europe’s decision to cut ties with Russia on the Luna program follows on the heels of ESA suspending the ExoMars mission, a collaboration with Russia that had been scheduled for launch this September. ExoMars would have paired an ESA-built Mars rover with a Russian-supplied lander for a mission on the Red Planet. (That landing module is still in Europe. Dmitry Rogozin, general director of Russia’s space program Roscosmos, recently asserted that it “must be returned.”)

The most recent of the pioneering Soviet moon missions was Luna-24, which lobbed roughly six ounces (170 grams) of lunar near-side collectibles back to Earth in 1976.

[Luna-25 is an attempt at a soft landing on the moon. Luna-26 would be a polar orbiter. Luna-27 would be a lunar lander with a drill for exploring beneath the lunar surface and an internal lab for analysis.]

This general trend is going to make things increasingly difficult for the ISS...

 

[SelfSim]

Shades of '2010: The Year We Make Contact' .. (except there is no unifying insight coming from alien intelligences).

 

[SkyWriting]

Europe Cancels Joint Moon Missions with Russia
Russia will move forward with lunar exploration without its European partners

In an April 13 statement, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced it was severing cooperative activities with Russia on the upcoming Luna-25, 26 and 27 missions. The agency wrote that “the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resulting sanctions put in place represent a fundamental change of circumstances and make it impossible for ESA to implement the planned lunar cooperation.”

Europe’s decision to cut ties with Russia on the Luna program follows on the heels of ESA suspending the ExoMars mission, a collaboration with Russia that had been scheduled for launch this September. ExoMars would have paired an ESA-built Mars rover with a Russian-supplied lander for a mission on the Red Planet. (That landing module is still in Europe. Dmitry Rogozin, general director of Russia’s space program Roscosmos, recently asserted that it “must be returned.”)

Finders keepers.

 

[SelfSim]

Finders keepers.

Wouldn't that depend on whether a sanctioned oligarch paid for it?

 

[Bob Crowley]

Shades of '2010: The Year We Make Contact' .. (except there is no unifying insight coming from alien intelligences).

I've always been cynical about the benefits of alleged contact with aliens. If we can't even share the planet with each other without indulging in our periodic mass murders of our own kind, I fail to see what benefit alien contact would bring.

It would only be a matter of time before they declared war on us, or we declared war on them. If they can cross intergalacactic space, I think they'd have the upper hand.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Europe Cancels Joint Moon Missions with Russia
Russia will move forward with lunar exploration without its European partners

[Luna-25 is an attempt at a soft landing on the moon. Luna-26 would be a polar orbiter. Luna-27 would be a lunar lander with a drill for exploring beneath the lunar surface and an internal lab for analysis.]

Russia says Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon’s surface​

Russia’s space agency said Sunday that its Luna-25 spacecraft — its first lunar mission in almost half a century — crashed into the moon.
Roscosmos earlier reported an “emergency” as it was trying to enter pre-landing orbit ahead of a planned Monday moon landing. After Roscosmos lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft, and efforts to locate it failed, the agency added that a preliminary analysis determined that it “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface” and that an interdepartmental commission will investigate the cause.
It has already sent back images of the moon’s Zeeman crater, and was expected to make a landing on Monday — two days before an Indian mission is set to touch down.

 

[Shemjaza]

Russia says Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon’s surface​

Russia’s space agency said Sunday that its Luna-25 spacecraft — its first lunar mission in almost half a century — crashed into the moon.
Roscosmos earlier reported an “emergency” as it was trying to enter pre-landing orbit ahead of a planned Monday moon landing. After Roscosmos lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft, and efforts to locate it failed, the agency added that a preliminary analysis determined that it “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface” and that an interdepartmental commission will investigate the cause.
It has already sent back images of the moon’s Zeeman crater, and was expected to make a landing on Monday — two days before an Indian mission is set to touch down.

There's certainly been a lot of evidence that, in general, Russian technology and infrastructure isn't as reliable or well maintained as they have claimed.

 

[AV1611VET]

Russia says Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon’s surface​

Russia’s space agency said Sunday that its Luna-25 spacecraft — its first lunar mission in almost half a century — crashed into the moon.

It figures.

Trying to land on the moon during a waxing crescent, when there is only 15% illumination.

 

[essentialsaltes]

— two days before an Indian mission is set to touch down.

Chandrayaan-3 Makes Historic Touchdown on the Moon​

On August 23 at 12:33 P.M. UTC India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission’s robotic lander, named Vikram, touched down on the moon near its south pole. Launched on July 14 by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Chandrayaan-3 was the result of the space agency doubling down on its bet on lunar landing after the unfortunate crash of its Chandrayaan-2mission in 2019. With the spacecraft now safely on the moon, ISRO’s efforts have paid off, and India has become the fourth country to achieve a soft lunar landing, following the former Soviet Union, the U.S. and China.

Chandrayaan-3 landed near the lunar south pole shortly after local sunrise. Doing so maximizes the mission’s surface operations lifetime to an entire period of lunar daylight (14 Earth days) because the lander and the rover it will deploy are both solar-powered. To begin Chandrayaan-3’s surface science mission, Vikram will activate its four onboard instruments and deploy the rover via a ramp to start exploring the geologically rich landing region.

For its next moon mission—targeting launch before the end of this decade—India may partner with Japan, another Artemis Accords participant. The pair’s planned LUPEX rover would directly study the nature, abundance and accessibility of water ice on the moon’s south pole and could provide vital data for future crewed missions launched there as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

And in the meantime, Japan will launch another lunar mission of its own: the nation’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is slated for liftoff on August 26, with a goal of lunar touchdown later this year to demonstrate new technologies for precise and affordable moon landings amid complex terrain.

 

[AV1611VET]

On August 23 at 12:33 P.M. UTC India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission’s robotic lander, named Vikram, touched down on the moon near its south pole.

Waxing crescent: 41% illumination.