How strong was the USSR in the past?It was the first country in the world to launch an artificial satellite, the first country in the world to send astronauts into space, and the first country to successfully launch a lunar probe.
However, how glorious the Soviet Union was in the past, how lonely Russia is today. The failure of Russia's "Luna-25" lunar exploration mission a few months ago means that Russia has lost the basic ability of the former Soviet Union to explore the moon, and it may also indicate that Russia is losing its qualification to cooperate with China in lunar exploration.
In August this year, Russia launched the first lunar probe, named "Luna-25", which was independently developed by Russia.
Luna-25 is part of Russia's lunar exploration program, which plans to study the chemical composition of the polar regions of the moon, including some compounds from space such as ice.
A few days later, the Luna-25 probe successfully entered lunar orbit, but then developed an anomaly and lost contact.
The Russian side issued an announcement saying that when the luna-25 propulsion system was transferred from the near-moon circular orbit to the landing elliptical orbit, the engine ignition ran for 127 seconds instead of the original plan of 84 seconds, which caused the probe to enter an unscheduled orbit and then directly hit the lunar surface, and the mission failed.
Why is there a delayed engine stall?The reason given by the Russian side was that at that time, multiple priority commands were sent to the same data array, which caused the accelerometer of the angular velocity measurement device to fail to open, which in turn caused the abnormal operation of the airborne integrated control system, so that the detector could not shut down the engine in time.
Russia originally hoped that Luna-25 would complete the lunar mission one step ahead of India, so as to show the world Russia's powerful space strength, but it backfired and its own probe failed first.
In fact, Russia is also trying to prove to China that it still has strong aerospace technology through this mission, and will use this as capital to cooperate with China to explore the moon, and even cooperate in the development of lunar resources in the future.
As we all know, the lunar exploration project is not only a huge project that costs a lot of money, but also a scientific research project that relies heavily on space exploration technology, and through strong alliances between countries, it is conducive to reducing investment risks and increasing the success rate.
But now the question is, is Russia still qualified to be an equal partner in China's lunar exploration program?To put it bluntly, there are two difficult problems in the lunar exploration project, one is the capital, and the other is the technology. Obviously, China is not short of funds, and the only thing China looks at is Russia's space technology accumulation.
Unfortunately, the failure of the Luna-25 mission has completely exposed the true technological level of the Russian side. If the Chinese side does not get anything good from cooperation with the Russian side, then what is the point of such cooperation?
Compared with Russia's current predicament, China is vigorous and in the ascendant in the field of aerospace. Some people will ask, why is China carrying out a lunar exploration program?Is it just to realize the dream of running to the moon?
The launch of artificial satellites, manned spaceflight, and deep space exploration are the three major areas of human space activities. Returning to the moon, developing lunar resources, and even establishing a lunar base have become the general trend of today's space activities.
The moon has a variety of unique resources that can be exploited and utilized by human beings, and the unique minerals and energy on the moon are important supplements and reserves of the earth's resources, which will have a far-reaching impact on the sustainable development of all mankind.
Therefore, China is going to carry out the lunar exploration project, and the current situation is "the right time and place" for us, and we have the determination, the funds, the technology, and the environment, which is a good opportunity that is once in a lifetime.
In 2004, China officially launched its lunar exploration program, which was named the Chang'e Project. The Chang'e project is divided into three stages: "unmanned lunar exploration", "manned lunar landing" and "establishment of a lunar base", and has now carried out the manned lunar landing stage, and plans to achieve the first landing of Chinese on the moon by 2030.