The Luna-25 mission will seek to land near the south pole of the moon, collecting geological samples from the area, and sending back data for signs of water or its building blocks, which could raise the possibility of a future human colony on the moon.But the first goal was to prove that Russia still can launch a lunar landing mission after numerous failures in the past, generations of turnover among its scientific experts, delays due to sanctions and now isolation due to its war in Ukraine.Post-Soviet Russia has launched two failed space landing missions, the Mars-96 in 1996 and Phobos-Grunt in 2011, both of which crash-landed into the Pacific Ocean.