A number of establishing documents were signed: a memorandum, an agreement, an intergovernmental agreement. China, with good financial support, is actively implementing the first stage of the lunar exploration program with automatic stations, said the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin. He also added that the next steps are the construction of a base on the Moon.
The Russian Federal Space Program for 2016–2025 provides for the launch in 2024 of the Luna-26 automatic interplanetary station, designed for remote studies of the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite from the lunar polar orbit. Among the station’s tasks are mapping the mineralogical composition and mapping the distribution of water ice on the Moon, the Roscosmos press service reports.
Exploration and determination of the properties of lunar resources, as well as assessment and monitoring of the activities on the Moon of foreign public and private spacecraft will become important tasks for the long-term Russian program of exploration and development of the Earth’s “neighbor”. One of the methods for doing this is to monitor the lunar surface in the infrared range.
