Russia Launches Lunar Spacecraft To Find Water On Moon

Russia launched its first moon-landing spacecraft in 47 years on Thursday in a bid to be the first power to make a soft landing on the lunar south pole, a region believed to hold coveted pockets of water ice.

A Soyuz 2.1v rocket carrying the Luna-25 craft blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome, 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow, on Friday at 0211 Moscow time. The lander is due to touch down on the moon on Aug. 23, Russia's space agency said.

The Russian lunar mission, the first since 1976, is racing against India, which sent up its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander last month, and more broadly with the United States and China, which both have advanced lunar exploration programmes.