Modi & Putin lunar summit RACE TO MOON

In a way it may look like a friendly race to the moon. Just when India’s Chandrayaan-3 is preparing to touch down on the moon’s surface, Russia launched a spacecraft on Friday, for the first time in nearly half a century; it is expected to land on the lunar surface on August 21, two days ahead of India’s mission.

- SHANKAR RAJ

Though India launched Chandrayaan-3 on July 14, much ahead, Russia’s Luna-25 mission has used a much more powerful Soyuz rocket to dash to the moon in a short span of 10 days.

Incidentally, Russia’s robotic lander will attempt a touchdown in the moon’s South Pole – the same region which India is also eyeing. This is an area suspected to have repositories of frozen water – a discovery made by India’s earlier lunar-orbiting missions. The Luna-25 objective is to scoop samples of moon rock and dust. The samples are crucial to understanding the moon’s environment ahead of building any base there.

Though the mission had been ‘work in progress’ for years before Russia invaded Ukraine, the timing is significant and analysts see it as President Putin’s move to redeem Russia’s great-power status.