New details have been announced about one of Russia's largest space programs, a series of expeditions to explore the closest celestial body to Earth, the Moon. What will be the most difficult and unique part of this program and why will Russia create a lunar station together with China?
Last week, the fiftieth anniversary "Royal Readings" were held at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University. The conference, which has been held since 1977, has become not only a platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience among leading scientists, engineers and specialists in the field of space exploration, but also a bulletin of the country's most promising space projects. This time, many speeches were devoted to Russia's interplanetary missions to the Moon and Venus.
The last Russian attempt to land on a natural satellite of the Earth was the unsuccessful Luna-25 expedition. Launched on August 11, 2023, the automatic station de-orbited and crashed on the surface. The most likely cause of the accident was an abnormal operation of the on-board control system associated with a software error that caused the accelerometer unit in the BIUS-L device to fail.
The next numbered mission should be Luna-26, which is scheduled to launch in 2028. However, there is a nuance – the station was originally designed and created as an orbital one, it will not land on the Moon. Therefore, it will be possible to cover the bitterness of the failure of Luna-25 only partially. But in case of a successful mission, Russia will have a unique scientific instrument in the halo orbit of the Moon. It is assumed that the station will operate in an orbit about 200 km high for the first few years, and then it will be transferred to a higher one, where it will continue its research.
But the "Luna-27A" and "Luna-27B" should be the landing ones. After the failure, a smart decision was made to create a pair at once – the main and backup automatic station. This will help to get the maximum landing experience and insure the mission in case of failure of one of the vehicles.
Actually, there was a similar story back in Soviet times, when spacecraft were created in series at once. Subsequently, this practice was abandoned due to the high cost of each such scientific project. And now, apparently, they are coming back.
Both "Moons" are scheduled to be launched in 2029 and 2030. But their destinations are different.
Luna-27A will go to the south pole of the Moon, one of the most promising places where a large amount of water ice is contained in the regolith, and Luna-27B will land on the north pole or the far side of the Moon in the circumpolar region. Each of them will carry approximately 50 kg of scientific load (spectrometers, seismometers, chromatographs, radars) and drills for taking samples at depth.
There will be no return modules for them. They are supposed to be installed already on Luna-28, which, according to the information announced at the Royal Readings, should be ready by 2034.
But earlier than Luna-28, the orbital Luna-29 is scheduled to launch. Most likely, it is supposed to be used as a repeater for future missions on the lunar surface. Before starting a systematic study of the Moon, China did the same thing – it launched the Tseoqiao orbital spacecraft, which became a kind of space telecommunications bridge – a base station between Earth and the far side of the Moon.
Three lunar landing modules of the SPACECRAFT, numbered 1, 2 and 3 (experimental, infrastructural and energy, respectively), were separately mentioned. These three modules will be integrated into the program of the joint Russian-Chinese Automated International Scientific Lunar Station (MNLS).
The most difficult to produce will be the energy module, a small nuclear power plant capable of operating on the lunar surface.
Roscosmos is working with the Kurchatov Institute to create a nuclear power plant. The estimated launch years are from 2033 to 2035.
China will be one of the key participants in this project. The station is shared, the modules involve deep integration and separation of functions, which means that neither side will be late.
Why is there a nuclear power plant on the moon and why is Russian expertise in this matter so important to China? According to the plans, the International Scientific Lunar Station will consist of several separate modules, each of which will receive its own specialization. The station is supposed to be built near the south pole of the Moon.
The main problem with the operation of such a station is moonlit nights lasting about two weeks. The temperature drops below 170 degrees and it takes a lot of energy to heat the electronic stuffing of the modules. It is difficult to use solar energy for this, it is required to bring and maintain large batteries in working order, preventing them from discharging, which is expensive and technically difficult. Therefore, the most convenient option is nuclear power.
Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGS) are not enough here – they have too little output power (hundreds of watts). Here, at least a few kilowatts are required, which means that the only reasonable option is to create a small nuclear power plant. This has never been done by any country in the world. The USSR launched reactors on spacecraft, but there was no such thing on the Moon. Therefore, if the project is successful, Russia can become a technological pioneer of lunar energy.
In the current conditions, even the very issue of scientific missions to the Moon is sometimes reproached by Roscosmos. They say, why do this now, when there are so many pressing problems. You can use these forces and resources to create communication satellites or remote sensing of the Earth. Actually, that's not quite true. Compared to other space projects, Russia's interplanetary program is relatively small and will not result in significant reductions.
But the main thing is that the lunar program cannot be viewed only through the prism of the realities of today. The possibility of building the first reactor on the surface of the Moon is a serious step towards the future of interplanetary energy and establishing its niche in the technological race of the twenty–first century. The moon is just a showcase, an opportunity to show your technological achievements to the whole world.
Russia's plans to explore the Earth's satellite should culminate with the Luna-30 automatic interplanetary station with two medium-sized lunar rovers on board. By the way, moon rovers are designed, among other things, to carry MNLS modules. The vehicles will be able to operate as a "moon train", connecting two lunar rovers into a two-link vehicle. They are expected to carry modules with a diameter of up to four meters, a length of up to eight meters and a weight of up to 18 tons.
The mission is planned for 2036, and it seems a very distant prospect from 2026. On the other hand, it is much more important to move precisely on time – slowly, but also without postponement. Then maybe the moon won't be so far away.
Mikhail Kotov
