For the first time in nearly half a century, Russia has launched a spacecraft that is headed to the moon.
On Friday morning at a spaceport in the far eastern part of Russia, a rocket lifted
Luna-25, a robotic lander of moderate size, to Earth orbit. It will try to land in the moon’s south polar region, where the presence of water ice has attracted the attention of numerous space programs, and make a year’s worth of scientific observations.
