Posted: Tue, Jun 6, 2006, 8:20 AM ET (1220 GMT)
The Russian space agency Roskosmos is beginning work on an ambitious lunar mission featuring penetrator probes and a soft lander, Aviation Week magazine reported Monday. The "Luna-Glob" mission is currently scheduled for launch in 2012, and would be Russia's first mission to the Moon since the Soviet Union ended the Luna series of probes in the mid-1970s. the spacecraft would carry 12 penetrator probes that would be fired into the lunar surface to create a seismic network; two of the 12 would be deployed near the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites. Luna-Glob would also carry a soft lander that would land near the south pole of the Moon and look for water ice deposits that may exist within permanently-shadowed craters. No cost estimate for the mission was provided. Several other nations, including the US, Europe, China, Japan, and India have either flown missions to the Moon in the last few years or have announced plans for lunar orbiters or landers that would fly later this decade.

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•  Aviation Week article