Russia in race to find water on the moon

Russia has launched a spaceship to the moon, for the first time in 47 years, in hopes it will become the first country to land at the southern lunar pole, where parts of icewater are believed to exist.

Russia's lunar mission, the first since 1976, has been launched as a race against India, which has launched a similar mission last month.

The race includes the United States and China, which have advanced moon exploration programs, all targeting the southern pole.

Russian missile Soyuz 2.1, along with the moon launch device Luna-25, are launched Friday in the vicinity of Moscow.

The space shuttle is expected to reach the surface of the moon on 21 August, Russia's Space Agency chief Yuri Borisov has said.

We'll be waiting for the 21st. I hope we can make the landing very accurately. Hopefully we'll be the first”, he said from the Vostuchni cosmodrome since the mission was launched.

Luna-25, which is the size of a small car, is expected to operate for a year at the southern moon pole, where scientists from the US Space Agency NASA and other agencies have identified ice water in several craters.

This mission, which Russia has been planning for decades, will test this state's independence since, after Moscow's war began in Ukraine in 2022, Russia has severed almost all ties with the West, despite its role in the International Space Station.

American astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first person to step on the surface of the moon in 1969, but the mission of the former Soviet Union Luna-2 was the first to ever reach the surface of the moon in 1959.