MOSCOW. May 30 (Interfax) - The launch of modern Russia's first ever lunar mission has been postponed from July until August 2023 due to the need for additional checks of ground control infrastructure, Roscosmos said on Tuesday.
"To achieve the needed reliability for completing the mission, additional measures must be carried out to ensure the stable operation of ground control systems during the correction stages and the descent to the surface of the Moon," Roscosmos said.
"Based on this, [we] think it is advisable that the Luna 25 spacecraft be launched in August 2023," it said.
The descent, the first one in the history of Russian space exploration, will be conducted in the difficult conditions around the lunar south pole, Roscosmos said.