Russia is scheduled to launch its first mission to the moon in nearly 50 years, pitting it in a space race with India which is also aiming to land a lunar craft this month.
The launch of the Luna-25 craft to the moon on Friday will be Russia’s first since 1976 when it was part of the Soviet Union and will be conducted without assistance from the European Space Agency, which ended cooperation with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
The launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East is scheduled for 2:11am Moscow time Friday (23:11 GMT Thursday), Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has said.
The four-legged lander weighs approximately 800 kilogrammes (1,750 pounds) and is set to reach the lunar orbit about five days later.
It is expected to reach the moon on August 23, around the same day as an Indian craft which was launched on July 14.
Both countries’ modules are headed for the lunar south pole, an area where no spacecraft has landed smoothly. Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
Roscosmos said the module would operate for one year and “take and analyse soil samples and conduct long-term scientific research” on lunar surface material and the atmosphere.
The Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the moon lander Luna 25 automatic station is transported to a launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East [Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP]
It said it wants to show Russia “is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon,” and “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface”.
Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it harder for it to access Western technology, impacting its space programme. The Luna-25 was initially meant to carry a small moon rover but that idea was abandoned to reduce the weight of the craft for improved reliability, analysts said.
“Foreign electronics are lighter, domestic electronics are heavier,” Vitaly Egorov, a popular Russian space analyst, said. “While scientists might have the task of studying lunar water, for Roscosmos the main task is simply to land on the moon. To recover lost Soviet expertise and learn how to perform this task in a new era.”
Journalist Daniel Hawkins said that for Russia the mission was a “big comeback to major space missions after quite a long break”.
“Everyone is well aware of the tremendous Soviet legacy in terms of space launches,” Hawkins told Al Jazeera, speaking from Moscow.
“After the Soviet Union collapsed and sent the last probe to the moon back in 1976, the Russian space institute really went into a period of decline,” he said.
For Russia, a successful mission would show that despite its turbulent past and the Western sanctions, which have “really impacted Russia’s space development”, the country is capable of conducting major space missions, Hawkins said.
It would show that it can do so with “equipment that is effectively made in Russia – Russia’s own brand to compete at an international level,” he said.
Russia’s latest space landing missions in 2016 and 2011, ended up failing.
‘Political competition’
“Study of the moon is not the goal,” Egorov said. “The goal is political competition between two superpowers – China and the USA – and a number of other countries which also want to claim the title of space superpower.”
The spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is key to his efforts to make Russia a space superpower and move Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Speaking at the Vostochny Cosmodrome last year, Putin said the Soviet Union had sent the first man to space in 1961 despite a “total” sanction regime.
He said Russia would develop its lunar programme despite Western economic penalties that reached unprecedented levels over the Ukraine war.
“We are guided by the ambition of our ancestors to move forward, despite any difficulties and despite external attempts to prevent us from moving,” Putin said.
A previous Indian attempt to land at the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s surface.
The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.
“The moon is largely untouched and the whole history of the moon is written on its face,” said Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the United Kingdom’s Royal Observatory, Greenwich. “It is pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It is its own laboratory.”
The Luna-25 is to take samples of moon rock and dust. The samples are crucial to understanding the moon’s environment ahead of building any base there, “otherwise we could be building things and having to shut them down six months later because everything has effectively been sand-blasted,” Bloomer said.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
