Dmitry Rogozin, general director of Roscosmos, in his New Year greetings, promised to launch the Luna-25 automatic interplanetary station (AMS) on the moon. The corresponding statement of the manager was published by the state corporation.
“We hope that in 2021 we will send our first lander to the moon from here, from the Vostochny cosmodrome. For the first time in [the last] 45 years of our astronautics history, we are returning to the Moon, ”said the manager.
Rogozin said that the launch of the Luna-25 will take place in October 2021 (on the medium rocket Soyuz-2).
The manager also said that in 2021 a new module “Science” (on the heavy rocket “Proton-M”) will be launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) to the International Space Station (ISS).
“We see off this year and welcome the new year 2021 with high hopes,” Rogozin said.
In 2021, according to RIA Novosti, Russia set an anti-record for the number of launches of space rockets by launching 17 carriers. The USSR carried out a similar number of launches in 1957-1961. The head of the Institute of Space Policy Ivan Moiseev linked the consistent decline in the number of launches of Russian rockets observed in recent years “mainly with the loss of the international space launch market.”
According to open data, the United States and China conducted more space rocket launches in 2020 than in 2019.
