Spacecraft from the two countries are set to touch down on the lunar surface over the next few days.
to touch down on the lunar surface, the latest in an international caravan of robotic spacecraft that have headed to the moon in recent years. They would be followed by the launch of a small lander to the moon by the Japanese space agency in an effort to test precise landing techniques that could be used in future missions.in recent years. China, meanwhile, landed in 2019 and again 2020 and seeks to send astronauts there by 2030.
With the United States “setting the Artemis strategy, we really made the moon a critical part of the strategy, and so by doing that, I think the whole world listened,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, former head of the NASA science mission directorate. “What you are seeing is really the lunar environment becoming a destination and a national imperative for many countries. I am not surprised there has been such an interest.
Over the next decade, NASA has estimated that human activity on and near the moon “will be equal to or exceed all that has occurred in this region since the Space Age began in 1957,” according to a White House statement late last year, which laid out a plan toMatthew Daniels, assistant director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said during ain June this level of activity could reach as many as 150 missions in the next decade.
For Russia, its landing, known as Luna-25, would mark its first attempt to land on the moon in 47 years. It is a way for the country to assert itself in a global space race and demonstrate it is still a player despite a withering of its space program since the Soviet era. Its spacecraft, carrying scientific payloads, is expected to touch down as early as Monday.
. “We are interested in the presence of water, as well as many other experiments related to the study of the soil, the site.”
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