Luna-Glob

• 1. Introduction

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  Luna-Glob, written Луна-Глоб in Russian, translates as Lunar sphere. It is the Moon exploration program of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. The name covers a ladder of ambitions. Robotic landers and orbiters come first, and a fully robotic lunar base is meant to follow. The story is full of postponed launch dates and redesigned spacecraft, and it began as the heir to a much older Soviet effort. Several questions run through it. Why did the first mission slip from one year to the next? Who was supposed to share the work, and why did that partnership end? What went wrong when a Russian lander flew to the Moon? And what would a base on the lunar surface actually contain?

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• 2. Soviet Inheritance

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  Between 1959 and 1976, the Soviet Union sent at least 24 orbiters and landers to the Moon under its Luna program. Fifteen of them were successful. Luna-Glob is the direct continuation of that record, and its numbering shows it. The Soviet series closed with Luna 24, launched on the 9th of August 1976. The new program picks up the count from there. Yet the first Luna-Glob mission was originally drawn up as an orbiter, not a lander.

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• 3. Penetrators and Moonquakes

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  Four Japanese-built penetrators, inherited from a project called Lunar-A, were the centerpiece of the first Luna-Glob design. Each weighed 45 kg, or 100 lb, and only 14 kg of that was the penetrator proper. The idea was to slam them into the lunar surface, where they would listen for seismic signals. Researchers expected those readings to help clarify the origin of the Moon. Two of the four were meant to land near the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 sites. That choice let the new data be compared with seismic records gathered there from 1969 to 1974. The orbiter carrying them would have had a total payload of 120 kg. It included astrophysics experiments, dust monitors and plasma sensors. It also included LORD, an astronomy instrument designed to study ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The mission built around this equipment came from plans that date back to 1997.

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• 4. Years of Delay

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  The Russian financial crisis of 1998 put the program's first mission, the Luna 25 lander, on hold. It was revived a few years later. The revived plan called for a launch in 2012 on a Soyuz-2 rocket. Then the dates began to move. The launch slid to 2014, then to 2015 and 2016, and later to 2018 and 2019. In 2017, Roscosmos approved a model of the Luna 25 lander, a sign that the hardware was finally taking shape. A separate failure in 2011, the loss of the Fobos-Grunt spacecraft, had already reshaped a second mission in the program.

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• 5. A Lost Partnership

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  Luna-Resurs, also called Luna 27, was first imagined as a joint mission with India. The Indian orbiter Chandrayaan-2 was to ride alongside a Russian lander carrying a 58 kg rover. The pair belonged to the International Lunar Network, a project that was later cancelled. The plan was to land near the Moon's south pole, examine a crater, and operate for up to one year. Fobos-Grunt had been meant as a test of the landing system. After it was lost, Russia said it could not deliver the lander and rover within the proposed time. India then chose to develop its lunar mission on its own. It achieved its moon landing with Chandrayaan-3. Russia's own Luna 25 lander, meanwhile, remained the first mission on the Luna-Glob list.

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• 6. The Luna 25 Crash

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  On the 19th of August 2023 at 11:57 UTC, Luna 25 hit the Moon's surface. The spacecraft had launched earlier that month from a Soyuz 2.1b rocket with a Fregat-M stage. Its destination was the south pole. The failure came during an orbit lowering maneuver, which Roscosmos described as anomalous. The lander never made a controlled descent. It crashed instead, ending the first Russian lunar landing attempt of the new program. The next spacecraft on the list was not a lander at all.

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• 7. Roadmap to the Poles

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  Luna 26 is planned for 2028 as an orbiter, the Luna-Resurs Orbiter, on a Soyuz 2.1b with a Fregat-M stage. Unlike their Soviet predecessors, the new Luna missions are targeted at the lunar poles. Luna 27A, a lander for the south pole, is listed for 2029. Luna 27B, a lander for the north pole, follows in 2030. Both ride on the Angara A5 rocket, as do all later missions. Luna 29, set for 2032, is a second copy of the Luna 26 orbiter. Luna 28 is listed for 2034. Also known as Luna-Grunt, it is a south pole lander designed for sample return. Luna 30 closes the list in 2036 with a lander and rovers. After Luna 30, the plans turn from single spacecraft to a permanent installation.

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• 8. The Lunar Base

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  In 2008, planners described Luna-Glob as a "robotic proving ground" that would be followed by a robotic base. In Russian the base is called Lunny Poligon, or Lunar Range. A habitable base would then grow from it. Its listed components were a solar power station, a telecommunication station, a technological station and a scientific station. The list also included a long-range research rover, a landing and launch area, and a telecom orbiting satellite. Crewed flights are meant to start in the 2030s with a crewed orbiter spacecraft called Orel. In 2017, reports said Russia planned to begin building the base in the same decade. At first no more than 4 people would live there, with the number later rising to a maximum of 12. The newest piece of the plan is power. Roscosmos gave NPO Lavochkin a contract in December 2025 to develop a lunar nuclear power plant. That followed a memorandum of cooperation on the plant, signed with the China National Space Administration in May 2025.

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