Russia to Return to the Moon with Nuclear Energy and Relevant Countries' Forces
Russia has unveiled new details of its most ambitious space program — the country will carry out a series of lunar expeditions to study the Earth's closest celestial body, the Moon. What parts of this plan are the most challenging and innovative? Why does Russia want to build a lunar station in collaboration with relevant countries?
Last week, Moscow's Bauman State Technical University held the 50th anniversary "Korolev Academic Symposium." This conference, which began in 1977, is not only a platform for top scientists, engineers, and professionals in the aerospace field to exchange knowledge and experience, but also a barometer for Russia's most promising space projects. At this year's symposium, many reports focused on Russia's lunar and Venus space exploration missions.
Russia's last attempt to achieve a soft landing on the Moon was the failed "Luna-25" probe. This automated probe was launched on August 11, 2023, and then deviated from its orbit and crashed onto the lunar surface. Investigations suggest that the most likely cause of the accident was an abnormal operation of the onboard control system, where the inertial navigation system's accelerometer module did not start due to a software error, ultimately leading to the failure.
Russia's next lunar mission, "Luna-26," is scheduled for launch in 2028. However, this mission has one unique feature: from the design stage, this probe is intended to be an orbiter around the Moon and will not perform a lunar landing. Therefore, it can only partially compensate for the disappointment caused by the failure of "Luna-25." If the mission is successful, Russia will deploy a unique set of scientific detection equipment in the lunar halo orbit. According to the plan, the probe will initially operate in an orbit at an altitude of about 200 kilometers, and later move to a higher orbit to continue its research and exploration.
The actual lunar landing missions will be carried out by "Luna-27A" and "Luna-27B." After the failure of the "Luna-25" mission, Russia made a wise decision — to develop both a primary and a backup automatic landing probe simultaneously. This measure not only maximizes the accumulation of landing mission experience but also ensures the safety of the entire lunar mission if one of the devices fails.
Indeed, during the Soviet era, there was a similar development model, where spacecraft were mass-produced. Later, this practice was abandoned due to the high cost per unit for such scientific projects. Now, it seems that Russia is reviving this tradition.
"Luna-27A" and "Luna-27B" are planned to be launched in 2029 and 2030, respectively, and their landing destinations are different.
"Luna-27A" will head to the lunar south pole — one of the most valuable regions for lunar exploration, where large amounts of water ice are stored in the lunar regolith; while "Luna-27B" is planned to land on the lunar north pole or the far side polar region. Both probes will carry about 50 kilograms of scientific payloads, including spectrometers, seismometers, chromatographs, radar, and other equipment, as well as drilling devices for collecting deep lunar samples.
Neither of these two probes will carry a return capsule. Russia plans to equip the "Luna-28" probe with a lunar sample return module for the first time. According to information released at the Korolev Academic Symposium, this probe is expected to complete its development before 2034.
Before "Luna-28," Russia also plans to launch the orbital probe "Luna-29," whose main purpose is likely to provide relay communication services for future lunar surface exploration missions. China also adopted the same strategy before systematically launching its lunar exploration program — it launched the "Queqiao" relay satellite, which became a space communication bridge and ground control base connecting Earth and the far side of the Moon.
At the symposium, three experimental modules of the Sino-Russian lunar station (labeled 1, 2, and 3 — namely, the experimental module, infrastructure module, and power module) were introduced separately. These three modules will be included in the Sino-Russian joint development of the fully automatic international lunar research station project.
The most technically challenging of them is the power module — a small nuclear power plant that can operate on the lunar surface.
Roscosmos is collaborating with the Kurchatov Institute to develop this nuclear power system, which is planned to be launched between 2033 and 2035.
Relevant countries are one of the core participants in this project. Since the international lunar research station is a jointly built project, each module must achieve deep integration and functional division, meaning neither Russia nor China can lag behind in the development schedule.
Why does the lunar station need a nuclear power plant? Why is Russia's technological advantage in this field crucial to relevant countries? According to the plan, the international lunar research station will consist of multiple independent modules, each carrying out different specialized exploration tasks. The site for building the station is tentatively set near the lunar south pole.
The core challenge facing the operation of such a lunar station is the approximately 14-day lunar night. During this period, the temperature on the lunar surface drops below -170 degrees Celsius, requiring a significant amount of energy to heat the electronic equipment of the modules. If solar power is used, not only would it require transporting large battery packs and maintaining their normal operation, preventing discharge, but the cost and technical difficulty would be extremely high. Therefore, nuclear power becomes the most convenient solution.
Radioisotope thermoelectric generators are unsuitable for this purpose — these devices have low output power, only hundreds of watts, while the lunar station requires at least several thousand watts of power. This means that developing a small nuclear power plant is the only reasonable choice. Currently, no country has achieved this technological breakthrough. The Soviet Union had nuclear reactors on its spacecraft, but never deployed a nuclear-powered device on the lunar surface. Therefore, if this project is successfully developed, Russia will become a pioneer in the field of lunar energy.
Currently, even just proposing a lunar science exploration mission, Roscosmos sometimes faces criticism. Many people question why resources should be invested in lunar exploration when there are many pressing issues at home. They argue that these human and material resources could be better used for developing communication satellites or Earth remote sensing satellites. But in reality, compared to other space projects, Russia's interstellar exploration program is relatively small, and even if it is canceled, it cannot free up a large amount of resources for other fields.
More importantly, when evaluating the lunar exploration plan, we should not limit ourselves to the present reality. Developing the world's first nuclear reactor on the lunar surface is an important step toward the future of interstellar energy, and it will help Russia take a place in the technology competition of the 21st century. The Moon is merely a window for Russia to showcase its technological achievements to the world.
The final mission of Russia's lunar exploration plan will be the "Luna-30" autonomous interstellar probe, which will carry two medium-sized lunar rovers. It is worth noting that one of the purposes of these lunar rovers is to transport the modules of the international lunar research station. The rovers can work collaboratively in a "lunar train" style, connecting two rovers into a dual-unit device. According to the plan, the rover can transport modules with a maximum diameter of 4 meters, length of 8 meters, and weight of up to 18 tons.
The "Luna-30" mission is planned for implementation in 2036. From the current perspective of 2026, this time seems very distant. On the other hand, the more critical aspect of this plan is to steadily advance according to the timeline, without rushing or delaying. If this can be achieved, the day when humans return to the Moon may not be far away.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7601846772637467178/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.