A big week for lunar exploration

If all goes as planned – and it’s space flight so that’s a big IF – next week will be a big week for lunar exploration.  First off, on Monday we’ll see the landing of Luna 25.  Luna 25 is the first Russian lunar mission since Luna 24 in 1976, back when it was still the Soviet Union.  Then on Wednesday, India’s Vikram lander will land, which is part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.  If successful, India will become only the fourth entity to land something on the moon, after the Soviet Union’s Luna 9 in February 1966, the US’s Surveyor 1 in June 1966, and China’s Chang’e 3 in December 2013.  And we hopefully won’t have to wait another decade for the fifth entity, because on Friday/Saturday Japan will launch the SLIM mission, which will land in a couple of weeks or months (I couldn’t quickly find any info on how soon it would land.) So in six days we could have two landings and the launch of another lander.  And there’s like a dozen more lunar missions scheduled to launch by the end of 2024.  I wish all the teams luck.