Officials Provide Updates on Russian Lunar & Mars Missions, Radar Satellite Program

Translated by Google Translate

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — On Wednesday, January 26, 2022, the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the Council on Space, which was attended by representatives of the State Corporation Roscosmos and the Scientific and Production Association named after S.A. Lavochkin (Khimki).

Alexander Shirshakov, First Deputy General Director – General Designer of NPO named after Lavochkin, spoke about the progress of work on the creation of automatic interplanetary stations Luna-25 and ExoMars 2022. The Luna-25 apparatus, which is to go to the Moon in July 2022, is at the stage completion of ground experimental testing.

In addition, ground-based experimental testing at the Thales Alenia Space company in Turin, Italy, of the ExoMars 2022 apparatus, created by Roscosmos together with the European Space Agency for the exploration of Mars, is nearing completion. In April, it is expected to be delivered to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in preparation for launch in September 2022.

According to Pavel Kazmerchuk, chief designer of the Luna-25 spacecraft at NPO Lavochkin, all scientific instruments have been installed at the new Russian station. Electro-radio engineering tests of the device are currently underway, which are planned to be completed in March, as well as the development of on-board software, which will be completed in April.

Aleksey Ivanov, chief designer of the ExoMars 2022 spacecraft at NPO Lavochkin, said that it is planned to complete the development of the onboard software in February this year.

Mikhail Khailov, Deputy Director General of Roscosmos, recalled that in February 2021, the highly elliptical hydrometeorological spacecraft Arktika-M No. 1 was launched. In September, flight design tests of the satellite were completed and it was put into operation.

“Currently, the production of the second spacecraft is underway, it will be launched in 2023. The minimum required composition of the Arktika-M group is two vehicles, but in order to work comfortably in the northern region, I would like to have four vehicles. This will increase the frequency of observation of the entire polar region from 15 to 7.5 minutes, which is important for hydrometeorologists,” Mikhail Khailov said.

According to him, Roscosmos is working to secure an order for at least four more Arktika-M satellites, and in the future it is planned to create a new generation of Arktika-MP satellites. Mikhail Khailov also announced plans to launch three Earth observation radars: in 2022 — Kondor-FKA No. 1, in 2023 — Obzor-R and Kondor-FKA No. 2.

“These three satellites will provide full coverage of the Northern Sea Route in 14 hours with a resolution of 12 to 40 meters, which is necessary for escorting ships,” he added.

In addition, a preliminary design of the new generation apparatus Kondor-FKA-M has already been completed.